


(you and me are) the difference between real love and the love on TV

by hipsterchrist



Category: One Direction (Band), Shawn Mendes (Musician)
Genre: Biphobia, Bisexual Male Character, Celebrities, Coming Out, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Masturbation in Shower, Phone Sex, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 00:18:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15618249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hipsterchrist/pseuds/hipsterchrist
Summary: Some pap photos spread like wildfire across the internet, published frantically on braindead celebrity gossip sites with headlines like “SHAWN MENDES AND NIALL HORAN: MORE THAN FRIENDS?” and poorly written articles full of puns on their song titles. His Twitter mentions are flooded with fans, both excited and distraught, and he clicks away from the trending topics tab as soon as he sees that he and Shawn have their own Twitter Moment. It’s all been thoroughly planned and carefully orchestrated - they all knew this is exactly what would happen - and it’s still fucking disarming as hell.Or: a coming out story, a fake relationship, a realization of what everybody already knew.





	(you and me are) the difference between real love and the love on TV

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to Shawn Mendes, who is no longer a teen, alhamdulillah, so I can feel a little less like a creep now. This is for Emma, who is the only reason I'm here anyway.
> 
> Title from Fall Out Boy's "Where Did the Party Go."

It’s not Shawn’s idea. It seems very important to Shawn that Niall knows that.

“I swear, this wasn't my idea, Niall, I swear,” Shawn says while running his hands anxiously through his hair. He’s not meeting Niall’s eyes and he’s blushing deep pink high on his cheeks. It’s starting to stress Niall out.

“Okay, I got that part,” he says, nodding. He hopes his tone is reassuring enough. “The first time you said it, and the second and third times, too.” Shawn gives a half-hearted laugh.

“Did you get the part where I said it was my publicist’s idea?” he asks. He sounds fucking miserable. Niall laughs, hoping to ease the tension in the room. Shawn grimaces, but at least he finally meets Niall’s eyes.

“Got that, yeah,” Niall says.

“You obviously can say no,” Shawn says. “You can obviously say hell no. Fuck no, shit no, some kind of Irish swearing that I don't _know_ no--”

“Shawn, I’m saying yes,” Niall says, then takes an abrupt step backward and instinctively ducks his head down so Shawn doesn't see how rapidly he’s blinking as he replays what he just said.

“You're saying _yes_?!” Shawn says. He takes a step back, too - Niall can tell by the way Shawn’s shoes disappear from his view of the floor. Niall looks up to see the utter shock on Shawn’s face. There's a suspended moment where Niall could laugh and pretend it was a joke, or that he’s thought better of it, or--anything, really. Anything but lean into it. But when he opens his mouth to back out, a look of hope rises in Shawn’s eyes, and he just--can’t.

“Yeah,” Niall says, stepping forward again, close enough so he can put his hand on Shawn’s arm. He’s hoping for reassuring again, but honestly he's not certain he's achieving it. Shawn looks almost spooked at his touch.

“It’s not that big a hardship, alright?” Niall explains. “You're one of my best friends. You need help. I can help you. I _want_ to help you. Let me.” Shawn stares at him.

“You're sure?” he asks quietly. “Like, totally sure? Like, completely, one hun--”

“Absolutely sure,” Niall says, even though he isn't, exactly. 

“But--it’ll mean it’s your coming out, too,” Shawn says. Niall shrugs. This part, he’s okay with.

“About time, I s’pose,” he says. “Demi’s always saying there need to be more outspoken bi celebrities.” He shrugs again. “Besides, you're handsome. It’ll look good, being next to you, on your arm or whatever.” Shawn blinks at him and frowns.

“Are you _sure_ though? I mean, you’ve always been like, this totally real person,” Shawn says nervously. His shoulders are frozen so high up around his ears that Niall’s own shoulders aches just looking at him. “You said it yourself: you're allergic to lying. I don't want to pressure you into some gross PR fake relationsh--”

“Mate, you're in a hell of a spot,” Niall says. “If you're gonna come out publicly, with words and all, it's gonna be a little bit shit. Great, too, probably, but either way, if there’s something I can do to help, I’m not letting you go through it alone, alright?” Shawn stares at him for a long few moments, blinking slowly and silently, and finally his shoulders begin to relax.

“Alright,” he says. Niall nods.

“Alright,” he repeats. “Just tell me what I gotta do.”

\---

Niall gives his parents a heads up before The Big Day. His mam says, “Well, alright,” in a vaguely condescending tone, and his da says nothing for long enough that Niall thinks the call dropped and then finally asks, “Are you sure this is how you want to do this?” It makes Niall hesitate - his father’s always been so protective of this part of Niall, ever since Niall was thirteen and asked if it was normal to feel the way he did about boys. There's probably no one in the world who has Niall’s best interests at heart more than Bobby. But Niall only clears his throat and takes a deep breath before replying.

“Shawn needs me,” he says. It comes out quieter and softer than he meant it, but the sentiment is still the same. Niall can practically hear his da nodding.

“Alright, then,” he says kindly.

Niall also tells his people - his publicist, his manager, his security. His publicist has been telling him every day since One Direction officially went on hiatus that he can come out publicly whenever he wants, but she thinks this is a terrible idea, and she scowls all throughout the meeting, furiously typing and swiping on her iPad. His manager shows absolutely zero emotion on her face the whole time, then asks for Shawn’s manager’s number, then gets up and walks out of the room, holding her phone to her ear. His security team just shrug. 

He completely forgets to tell the lads.

Some pap photos spread like wildfire across the internet, published frantically on braindead celebrity gossip sites with headlines like “SHAWN MENDES AND NIALL HORAN: MORE THAN FRIENDS?” and poorly written articles full of puns on their song titles. His Twitter mentions are flooded with fans, both excited and distraught, and he clicks away from the trending topics tab as soon as he sees that he and Shawn have their own Twitter Moment. It’s all been thoroughly planned and carefully orchestrated - they all knew this is exactly what would happen - and it’s still fucking disarming as hell.

Niall avoids his phone for two hours and comes back to it to find an avalanche of texts filling the group chat.

**Payno**  
_Nialler???????_

**Tommo**  
_Neil what is this??? You didnt tell us youve got a bf!_

**Harry**  
_Niall. You let us find out from pap pics?_

**Payno**  
_You let yourself get papped? is a better q i think_

**Harry**  
_Fair point, Liam._

**Tommo**  
_I do feel a bit betrayal!!_

**Tommo**  
_betrayed*_

**Tommo**  
_YOU’VE CHANGED NIALL_

**Harry**  
_Nialllllllllll._

**Payno**  
_Answer us mate!!_

**Tommo**  
_Probs off snogging this boy_

**Tommo**  
_How old is shawn mendes anyway_

**Payno**  
_Had to double check with google but 19_

**Harry**  
_Christ._

**Tommo**  
_Neil how can you let yourself get papped like this with a CHILD_

**Tommo**  
_?????????_

**Tommo**  
_HORAN YOUCANT AVOID US FOREVER_

**Harry**  
_Give Shawn a juice box and tuck him in for a nap and answer us, please._

Niall rolls his eyes and groans before finally replying.

 **Niall**  
_That what all your gentlemen and ladies did with you, styles ?_

**Harry**  
_Alright. I walked into that one._

**Tommo**  
_HE SPEAKS_

**Tommo**  
_@Payno COME BACK he’s here_

**Payno**  
_finally!!!_

**Payno**  
_Nialler what the hell? How long have you been dating Shawn_

Niall sighs. He really can't believe he fucking forgot to tell them.

 **Niall**  
_It’s fake, lads_

**Harry**  
_You mean it's not real?_

**Tommo**  
_That generally is what fake means harry_

**Harry**  
_I mean, is it just a gossip site lie?_

**Harry**  
_Did the Sun just make it up or something?_

**Tommo**  
_Can't be can it? I mean there's pictures Niall_

**Niall**  
_We’re not really dating it’s a fake relationship_

**Tommo**  
_What like for PR??_

**Tommo**  
_Niall what the fuck_

**Harry**  
_That's not like you at all, Ni._

**Niall**  
_It’s a bit complicated but Shawn wanted to come out and his people thought it would soften the blow for it to be like, look he’s gay and he’s already got a boyfriend so don't panic_

 **Niall**  
_They thought people would take it better if he was dating somebody_

**Harry**  
_So you volunteered?_

**Niall**  
_More or less_

**Harry**  
_Mate, I love you but is this really how you wanted to come out? It feels like lying while you're trying to tell the truth._

Niall chews on his lip at that. Leave it to Harry to channel Niall’s father.

 **Niall**  
_Shawn needed my help_

 **Niall**  
_Plus i mean it’s not like it looks bad for me to be linked to him ya know ? And it’s not hard coz we’re already good friends_

**Tommo**  
_Hmm_

It’s a disapproving _hmm_. Niall can tell just through the letters. He frowns down at his phone.

 **Niall**  
_I know its weird but i promise it’s all good, lads. I know what i’m doin_

**Payno**  
_Do u?_

**Payno**  
_I mean_

**Payno**  
_I know you know him better than I do but_

**Payno**  
_Have you looked at these pics yourself mate?_

And then there's a flurry of the pap photos, one after another, and Niall sits back in surprise. Liam’s right, though - he hasn't really looked at them himself. He thumbs through them now, sees himself and Shawn holding hands as they shop around Melrose, Niall drinking from a coffee cup with Shawn’s name scrawled on it, Shawn placing his arm low around Niall’s back as they walk back to Niall’s car. He pauses on the last one and stares, unblinking, for probably too long at a shot of Shawn kissing the back of Niall’s hand with their fingers still interlaced. It was an improvisation on Shawn’s part, took Niall a bit by surprise, and Shawn kept eye contact the whole time, which made Niall go momentarily speechless. It’s turned out to be a sort of masterful move. This is a good picture, a casual sweet coupley thing, just this side of suggestive, and sure to convince people that they’re together. 

Niall’s deeply relieved that he was turned away from the camera, that no one got to see the look on his face when it happened.

 **Niall**  
_I see em. What’s the problem ?_

**Tommo**  
_Kind of intense, mate_

**Harry**  
_Damn. The last one is certainly something._

Niall makes a face at his phone.

 **Niall**  
_Wth are you talking about_

**Payno**  
_Are you sure it’s all fake Nialler?_

**Payno**  
_Cos it doesn’t look totally fake for him_

**Niall**  
_??????_

 **Niall**  
_WHAT are you talking about ??_

**Tommo**  
_The way he looks at you_

**Niall**  
_Oh my god_

 **Niall**  
_Are ya serious_

**Payno**  
_I mean like REALLY look, mate_

**Niall**  
_I was looking when the pics were taken !_

_**Niall**  
This really isn't a thing you lads need to be concerned about. Shawn’s absolutely not secretly in love with me, that's so stupid_

**Tommo**  
_It wouldn't be stupid to be in love with you niall_

**Harry**  
_Yeah, you're the best of us_

**Tommo**  
_Be stupid of him to NOT be in love with ya tbh_

Niall groans and throws his phone to the other end of the couch. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, takes some deep breaths, and retrieves the phone three minutes later.

**Payno**  
_True he’s lucky to even be your fake boyfriend_

**Harry**  
_I would've loved to fake date you, Niall._

**Tommo**  
_I mean did you not harry_

**Harry**  
_I suppose a case could be made._

**Payno**  
_Cases HAVE been made on the internet many times over for all five of us boys lets not get fistracted_

**Payno**  
_DISTRACTED*_

**Tommo**  
_Wow_

**Niall**  
_All of you are really killin me here_

**Payno**  
_Just be careful, mate. I don't want either of you getting hurt over this_

**Niall**  
_It’s under control i promise. No one’s getting hurt cos there's no feelings involved_

**Tommo**  
_Mm_

It’s a disbelieving _mm_. Niall frowns again and sighs. There's nothing he can say to make them believe him.

**Payno**  
_Alright nialler we trust you_

**Harry**  
_Yeah, we support you, Niall._

**Tommo**  
_Obvs_

**Tommo**  
_Even if this is bloody weird_

**Harry**  
_Niall, can you please leave the chat now so we can take proper bets on which one of you will accidentally fall in love with the other?_

**Harry**  
_KIDDING._

**Payno**  
_I’m tellin you lads the child is already there_

**Niall**  
_Can't believe there was a time I lived with this day in and out_

**Tommo**  
_Oh please you miss us_

**Niall**  
_Course I do_

**Harry**  
_Oh, Niall, I miss you, too._

**Payno**  
_What about me and louis??_

**Harry**  
_Eh._

**Tommo**  
_A predictable joke as usual styles so disappointing_

**Payno**  
_You used to be funny_

**Tommo**  
_Oi don't tell him THAT_

There’s a knock at Niall’s door that makes him jump, and then an individual text notification from Shawn.

**Shawn**  
_It’s me!_

Niall grins and gets up to walk toward the door, typing the whole way.

 **Niall**  
_Alright lads I’ll leave you to place yer bets then_

**Tommo**  
_Oh! is the baby there now?_

**Payno**  
_Do you guys have to practice kissing and stuff_

**Tommo**  
_Liam what the fuck??_

**Payno**  
_To make it believable!_

**Harry**  
_How often do you see celebrity couples just passionately snogging on the sidewalk for paps to catch, Liam? At most there may be some pecks._

**Payno**  
_I dunno, there's always some gross over the top pair isn't there_

**Tommo**  
_Oh my god are we going to be expected to like all your stupid cute instagram posts????_

**Harry**  
_Oh, those will be adorable. I’ll be happy to like them._

Niall rolls his eyes and locks his phone before opening the door to find Shawn standing on the front step, hand rubbing anxiously at the back of his neck, face blotchy pink.

“Hey,” Shawn says, “sorry to come over unannounced.”

“We're well past that, mate,” Niall says cheerfully, stepping aside to let Shawn enter the house. “Even before, you know, this. When’s the last time you announced you were heading over?”

“Guess it’s been awhile,” Shawn says. His shoulders are up around his neck, tension evident in his body. Niall feels bad for him. “I just--needed to be….” He trails off awkwardly, giving Niall an apologetic glance.

“With me,” Niall finishes for him. For a strange moment it seems like his heart thumps a little harder in his chest. The living room feels so small right now. Shawn smiles nervously.

“Yeah,” he says. “We're in this together, after all.”

“Yeah,” Niall says, shrugging. “I know it's a little different for you, though. You have a tweet to send out soon, right?” Shawn swallows and bites his lip. There's a second where Niall really thinks that Shawn's about to cry. “Alright, come on, I’ll make you some tea and we can have a cuddle on the couch while you calm down.” Shawn laughs and nods before heading toward the sofa. Niall goes into the kitchen, grateful that he already had the kettle going before and the water is now at the perfect slightly cooled post-bowling temperature.

He sets about making tea for the both of them, and just as he’s spooning a bit of sugar into Shawn’s cup, his phone dings with a notification of a tweet from Shawn. It’s a simple statement - _There’s some things I gotta say_ \- and a screenshot of a note. Niall knows what it’s going to say - he and Shawn ran through it all together, and then ran it all by their managers, and then ran through it together again - but he clicks it anyway.

_I’ve been wondering how and when to say this, and what exactly to say, but sometimes choices are made for us, I guess, so here it is: I’m gay. I never intended to lie to my fans, but I did want to keep it private until I got comfortable with what it means to me. Niall has helped with that. You know how when you're with someone you really care about, you just forget anyone else is around? I guess that's sort of what happened today. This isn't really the ideal way to announce any of this, but I’m glad people know now, for what it’s worth. Living a lie sucks, even if it's just a lie by omission. No more secrets, starting now._

There's a series of heart emojis at the bottom, in all the colors of the rainbow, but Niall gets stuck on the last two lines, just like he did when they kept running it by each other. Shawn didn't want to keep them, the last Niall spoke to him - “because this is technically another lie,” he said with a frown. But Shawn’s team must have won that battle. Niall bites his lip and shoves his phone into his pocket before carrying mugs of tea out to the living room, where Shawn is sprawled dramatically across the couch, one arm flung over his eyes, his phone down by his feet.

“Come on, then,” Niall says. Shawn sighs and moves his legs so Niall can sit down, only to immediately stretch his legs out in Niall’s lap. He takes the cup of tea with both hands and sits up enough to safely take a few sips. “Better?” Niall asks, resting his hand on Shawn’s bare ankle. Shawn shrugs, but he does appear to be slightly more cheerful, which is a good sign.

“Your turn,” Shawn says quietly. Niall nods and digs his phone back out of his pocket. He’s had his series of tweets composed and saved in his drafts since before they even left the house to get papped this morning. 

“My turn,” he says. He opens Twitter, takes a quick look over his drafts again, and hits _Tweet all_.

**@NiallOfficial**  
_Sooo this isn't really the ideal way I wanted to do this but I'll just speak plainly- yeah I'm bi and yeah I'm dating Shawn. Been wanting to do the whole coming out thing, just didn't know how or when. Choice was made for me I guess_

**@NiallOfficial**  
_On the one hand I'm relieved for people to know. Takes a lot of energy to hide. On the other hand I wish I coulda done it on my own terms and without dragging shawn into something he didn't ask for_

**@NiallOfficial**  
_You lot know I like to keep my private life private so I hope I can trust you to respect our relationship. I do however feel a responsibility to be more open about my sexuality._

**@NiallOfficial**  
_Don't want to make any promises besides being visible and outspoken but I look forward to what comes next and I hope you'll still be there for me. Love you x_

“Mine makes me sound like kind of an asshole, compared to yours,” Niall says as the number of replies, retweets, and likes increases at a rate that never stops causing him some level of alarm. He lingers just long enough to see a notification that _Harry Styles. liked your Tweet_ before closing the app and setting his phone aside.

“It would be a different vibe, realistically,” Shawn says, but he still frowns and pats Niall’s arm reassuringly. “It’s tailored to our respective fans, remember? Yours know you. They’d know something was off if you weren't….”

“Gruff?” Niall asks, giving Shawn a wry smile. Shawn laughs and sits up more fully but doesn't move his legs from Niall’s lap. Niall downs the rest of his tea and squeezes Shawn’s ankle. “You're gonna be okay, Shawn,” he says. 

“I know,” Shawn says. He takes his final sip of tea and places the empty mug on the coffee table next to Niall’s. “I know my fans will be supportive. I know I’ll be fine. It’s just...the press, man.” He bites his lip and looks at Niall, big eyes shining. “I’m _scared_ of them.”

Not for the first time, Niall realizes just how _young_ Shawn is. Too young to carry this alone. Of course Niall would never let him go through it by himself. He trails his hand up Shawn’s leg and squeezes again, this time at his thigh. He feels the thick muscle underneath the black denim of Shawn’s jeans shift, as if accommodating Niall’s fingers digging in. Shawn puts his hand over Niall’s and looks down at their hands for a moment before looking back up.

“I’ll be there with you every step,” Niall says. “Just remember that. We got interviews and photoshoots together scheduled. We got red carpet shit together. Anything anyone has to say about you, they say about me, too, okay? I know this is like, not a real relationship but I’m treating it that way, like this, for you. I got your back.” Shawn smiles and blinks rapidly, glancing away to take a deep breath and touch the heel of his free hand to his eyes.

“I don't know what I would do without you,” he says. “I had no idea when I DM’ed you that you’d turn out to be such a good friend.”

“Alright, we have to get our stories straight,” Niall says, grinning, “because I could've sworn _I_ DM’ed _you_ first.” Shawn laughs.

“You're wrong, but I don't think it matters. I think it's cuter if we disagree on how we first met,” he says, slowly removing his hand from atop Niall’s. 

“Probably right,” Niall says. He moves his hand back to Shawn’s ankle, drumming his fingers on the bone there. “You ready for all these coupley questions about me?”

“I think I can handle those,” Shawn says. Niall raises his eyebrows.

“So, Shawn,” he says, pitching his voice high and adopting a standard Midwestern American accent, which instantly gets Shawn laughing. “What was the first thing that drew you to Niall? You know, what was the thing that first attracted you to him?”

“His eyes,” Shawn says immediately, through laughter. Niall gives him a surprised look before slipping right back into character.

“Oh, you love those baby blues, don’tcha?”

“They're not really baby blue, though,” Shawn says, more sincere this time. “They're darker, like the ocean.” Niall bites his lip.

“Sounds like you’ve been rehearsing,” he says, letting the fake voice fall away. Shawn holds his gaze for a moment, something inscrutable in his eyes, before shrugging and looking away.

“What about you?” Shawn asks. He looks back at Niall, tilting his head, a smile playing on his lips. “When did you know you wanted to date Shawn? That he was something special to you?” Niall hums, looks down st Shawn’s legs in his lap.

“It just hit me one day,” he says. In truth, he’s been rehearsing, terrified of getting a detail wrong in the midst of this and having the whole thing crash down. He has to be committed, and committed looks like creating an entire fake backstory of asking Shawn out, of what they like to do when they’re alone together on days off, of their first date. Coming up with the moment he knew he was falling for Shawn was easy enough. “Can't explain it. He was laughing at something I said, which wasn't even that funny, and I looked at him and thought, ‘Oh.’”

When he looks up, Shawn is staring at him, mouth slightly open on a half-smile, eyes searching. Niall blinks at him.

“What?” he asks. Shawn’s half-smile grows into a grin.

“That’s so _romantic_!” he exclaims with a laugh. Niall feels his face heat up, to his utter annoyance.

“Yeah, well, I am capable of romance!” he says. It’s meant to be defensive, but the effect gets lost in his own laughter.

“And soon everyone will know it,” Shawn says. “Hope you’re good with that.” Niall shrugs.

“We’ll be fine,” he says. 

“We gon’ be alright,” Shawn says, nodding. Then he keeps nodding, presumably to the beat of the Kendrick Lamar song in his head. “Movie?”

“Your pick this time,” Niall says.

“Can you hand me my phone?” Shawn asks. “For Netflix,” he clarifies, when Niall gives him a sharp look. Niall shakes his head and hands over his own phone.

“I’m serious, mate,” he says. “You’ll have a better time today if you stay off your phone.” Shawn sighs as he opens Niall’s Netflix app.

“I know you’re right,” he says quietly.

“Hey, you should stay over tonight,” Niall says. “Guest room’s all made up. New sheets on the bed, too. Real elite.” Shawn huffs out a laugh and looks up at him. “And I’ll lock your phone up until morning so you can actually get some sleep before this all hits you.” Shawn nods, smiling.

“You sure know how to show a guy a good time.”

\---

The following week is a whirlwind of reactions, which all goes pretty much as Niall expected.

Late night talk show hosts have a fucking field day with the news. Kimmel makes some crack about how he can’t believe Niall was the first member of One Direction to come out rather than Harry, which makes Niall want to hit someone - Kimmel, to be specific. Fallon stammers through an innocuous remark about finally getting a Niall Horan/Shawn Mendes collaboration and Colbert goes for the rather obvious “more than one direction” joke. James, God love him, very nearly foregoes a joke entirely and instead devotes almost two full minutes of his opening monologue to expressing support for Niall and Shawn - “two _very_ good friends of the Late Late Show, as you all know,” he says - and saying that he hopes their coming out will empower other young people to feel comfortable exploring who they are. Of course, he ends it with, “Niall, Shawn, I’d love to have you both back for Carpool Karaoke, but one of you _has_ to sit in the front seat; I’ll _not have_ the two of you in the backseat together - this is a family show,” but Niall’s grateful for the normalcy.

He gets tagged hundreds of times in a couple dozen videos of the same few minutes of Harry’s most recent show, all from different angles and distances. Harry stands on stage in one of those sheer, shiny shirts of his that always used to make Niall feel anxious for some reason, grips the microphone and says with a teasing smile on his face, “A rather good friend of mine - maybe you’ve heard of him, name’s Niall Horan,” and then he throws back his head and opens his mouth on a soundless scream, both mocking and joining the crowd in their own shouting. “Niall recently came out as bisexual” - more screaming - “and I know at these shows, in this audience, that sort of thing can sometimes get treated casually, but I want to remind everyone of something: it takes a _lot_ of courage to do what Niall did, and what so many of you do at these shows and every day. I just want to say congratulations, I’m proud of you, and I love you,” Harry finishes, and then prances around the stage wearing a bisexual pride flag like a cape. It makes Niall snort with laughter and also, somewhat embarrassingly, sort of cry.

He also gets tagged in hundreds of tweets linking to audio from a radio interview with Louis, where Louis gets asked about it and manages to be defensive, supportive, and emotionally manipulative in a roundabout way that Niall’s only ever known Louis to master. “Of course we _knew_ ,” he says in a hostile tone when the DJ asks if anybody in the band knew Niall liked men; “No one warms my heart like Niall, you know? I’m just so proud of him for deciding to be open about it and being fearless,” he says sweetly, and Niall can just about hear the smile on his face; “He’s the realest person I know, honestly, and it must be such a relief to be able to, you know, _live his truth_ , as it were,” he says, in a way that feels pointed directly at Niall and his fake relationship. Niall texts Louis a short series of emojis - eye roll, middle finger, red heart - and ignores the response he gets, which is just dozens of _:)_ followed by _x_.

He nearly misses a tweet from Liam because Liam didn’t tag him, but he likes it so much that he stares at it until his eyes cross and then screenshots it to look at more later. It’s a simple message - _Proud of you, mate. Don’t tell the other 3 but you were always my favourite_ \- but it’s got a bunch of pink, purple, and blue heart emojis, which turns out to feel strangely meaningful to Niall, as well as a photo of the two of them together. It's an ancient picture, probably the first one in existence that featured both of them, from when they shared a room at X-Factor boot camp. Niall’s teeth are wonky and Liam is obviously stressed to hell and they both look terribly, horrifically young, but Niall’s kissing Liam’s face and Liam’s giving the camera a miserable excuse for a wink. Liam told him, a couple of years later, when Niall came out to the lads, that Niall frightened him back then because he gave off the distinct air that he fell in love with everyone he met. This picture accompanying this tweet is a sentimental throwback that Louis’ going to make fun of Liam for, but Niall feels touched, and puts his whole day on pause while he types up an emotionally charged email that he knows will get Liam crying.

Niall’s phone is filled with texts from family and friends and people he hasn't spoken to for ages congratulating him, saying they're proud of him, saying Shawn is a catch. Ed and Demi and Jade and Selena and Justin and Taylor and Ellie don’t seem at all deterred by him not replying to them. Bressie and Eoghan and Laura and Michael have asked about four times each now when they’ll get to meet Shawn. Greg and Denise are threatening to withhold pictures of Theo until they get pictures of him and Shawn together.

He misses a call from an unfamiliar number and when he listens to the voicemail, he hears Zayn’s ever familiar mumbling. “Just wanted to throw my hat into the ring of everybody congratulating you, like. Proud of you, Nialler. Surprised, too - you’ve always been so private, you know, babes? But prouder than anything. Listen, like, if anyone gives you trouble, you know, just point me to them, yeah? I’ll still get in scrapes for you. _Gladly._ You're still my little brother and if they fuck with you, they fuck with me, like. Alright, I’ll let you go. I love you, babes. Tell Shawn I say hey.” Niall almost calls back to explain that he and Shawn aren't really in a relationship, but the thought of trying to explain that to Zayn right now makes something uncomfortable twist in his chest, so he just saves it instead, swears he’ll come back to it later, once he’s found the right words.

And there's a voicemail from a number Niall specifically avoided, too, a call he was dreading. “Um, Niall Horan?” says Nick Grimshaw in an accusatory tone. “ _What_ \--well, congratulations, first of all, love. Very proud of you, and so on. But _what_ on _earth_ are you doing out here dating that sweet summer child and _not telling me_? I had _better_ be first on your list for an interview, I _swear_ to god and whatever. You get back to me _immediately_ with your schedule vacancies because if you think I’m just letting this slide--” and then it abruptly cuts off, like Nick was bored of the one-sided conversation and remembered he had other things to do. Niall chews on his thumbnail and plays it for Shawn to hear.

“Grimmy’s like, a proper friend, you know?” he says. “I don’t know if I can look him in the face and lie to him about this.”

“Then I’ll do that one,” Shawn says easily, rubbing at the knot of tension just between Niall’s shoulders. “You can call in, if he won’t let you off the hook. That way you won’t have to look at him.” Niall nods and smiles gratefully at Shawn. Problem solved, then.

There’s some backlash, of course, but they knew to expect a bit of that, too. Some fans - alleged, at least - respond hatefully to the news. Some bloggers and YouTubers have some shit to say. One particularly vitriolic article written by some guy Niall’s never heard of but who seems to be popular with men who love to rage at women online claims that famous guys like Niall and Shawn are indoctrinating boys into believing that same-sex attraction and relationships are normal and acceptable rather than the evolutionary flaw afflicting modern, weak males that it so obviously is. The word _sin_ is never used but _beta_ comes up repeatedly, which makes Niall laugh hysterically and roll his eyes. It’s comforting to see Louis, Eoghan, and Liam defending him on Twitter, but truth be told, Niall’s not bothered by any of it.

Because the positive reaction is worth _every_ awful comment and blog post. Even Shawn agrees, after Niall talks him through a panic attack over the negative bits. Niall rubs Shawn's shoulders while Shawn presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. He reads Shawn supportive tweets, shows Shawn the hashtags created in their honor, inspired by them, somehow. Fans saying that they came out to their families and friends and teachers and coworkers because of Niall, because of Shawn. 

It’s all so dizzying to think about, that Niall’s entire bumbling, awkward, uncomfortable process of realizing he liked boys as well as girls led, ultimately, to this. 

His first tweet since The Official Tweets reads:

**@NiallOfficial**  
_I can't thank you enough for your support, as ever. All of you saying you're coming out coz of me - that's coz of YOU ! I love you all_

As soon as it posts, his eyes catch the tweet just below his on his timeline.

 **@ShawnMendes**  
_Your support means the world to me._

He instantly likes it, then reads it again, and again, and again, until it starts feeling like it was meant for him, too.

\---

It takes Niall another week before he manages to call Zayn. It rings for so long that he starts to think Zayn’s changed his number again already, but eventually Niall hears a sleepy, “‘lo, Nialler.”

“Shit, did I wake you up?” Niall says. He pulls the phone from his ear to look at the time - it’s 8:03 in the morning in New York, of course Zayn was still asleep - and then begins apologizing, but Zayn cuts him off before he can get it out.

“No, babes, I’m just not totally awake yet, you know?” he says. “Stood in the kitchen waiting on the kettle.” Niall blinks.

“What, are you like, a morning person now?” he asks. Zayn laughs.

“Dunno if I’ll ever be _that_ , but I’ve been, like, sticking to a routine. Early to bed and all that.”

“Jesus, what's happened to you?”

“I’m old, babes,” Zayn says with a heavy sigh. “We all are. Well, except your boy. What's he a smooth eighteen, like?” Niall can tell by Zayn’s tone that he’s joking, but Niall takes the bait anyway.

“ _Nineteen_ , thanks very much,” he says. “Twenty in a month.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” Zayn says with a laugh. Niall hears a loud click in the background and Zayn muttering under his breath, “ _Finally_ ,” and then, after a few more seconds, “How is he, by the way? Holding up alright? I saw that shit that guy wrote - what a fucking shit head. I found out where he works and sent him a box full of horse shit.”

“Christ,” Niall says, laughing. “Say ‘shit’ again.”

“Shit,” Zayn says. Niall can just about hear him grinning, can perfectly picture Zayn’s tongue pressed up against the back of his teeth as he raises a mug to his mouth.

“That's why I called, anyway,” Niall says, suddenly nervous. “Well, not the horse shit, but--Shawn.”

“Trouble in paradise already?”

“Nah, it’s--well.” Niall clears his throat. “It’s not, like, real?”

“What’s not real?” Zayn asks. Niall thinks he hears a fridge door closing. He swallows.

“The, uh, relationship. Me and Shawn. We’re not actually together,” he says, all in a rush. He hopes Zayn won’t ask him to repeat it.

“What you talking about, babes? You know I saw the pictures, right? You look very together in the pictures.”

“Yeah, it’s--” Niall sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s fake. We’re not really dating. We’re just pretending.” There’s absolute silence from Zayn’s end then, vast and deep. Niall feels engulfed by it. His palms are sweating as he waits for Zayn to tell him how disappointed he is.

“What, like--” Zayn starts, finally, and then, “Why? Neither of you need the PR, do you?”

“No, it’s complicated,” Niall says. “Shawn wanted to come out, you know, publicly, and his team thought the press and everyone would like, take it better if he had a boyfriend. He’s had those rumors going about him for ages, you know? I think they just wanted to lessen the ‘Told you so’ smug bullshit. It’s still happening, of course, but mostly the line is ‘Look how cute they are,’ I guess, so that’s something. Anyway, he asked me for help, and I was sort of wanting to come out anyway, and I wanted to help him, so.” He sighs again.

“So now you’re dating,” Zayn says. Niall can’t read his tone, which sets an annoyed sting in his throat.

“Look, I know you’re disappointed in me,” he says. “I know how you feel about relationships solely for the press, I get it. I just wanted you to know the truth because--”

“Niall, hang on, babes,” Zayn cuts in. He sighs. “You’re talking about the GQ interview, yeah? This isn’t what I meant by that, alright? This is a unique situation, like. How could I be disappointed in you for helping out your friend? I know it’s, like, shit out there still when people come out of the closet. I wouldn’t want someone I care about to go it alone either, like, if I could do something about it, and you could, and you did. You’re brave, Nialler. I’d never be disappointed in you.”

Niall sits quietly, searching for words and finding nothing. Zayn doesn't push, just lets Niall listen to him softly breathing. Niall hears a few familiar sounds in the background and takes the opening.

“You actually doing breakfast now, too?” he asks. Zayn clicks his tongue.

“Trying to be a like, healthy person is such a chore, sometimes, you know? Lots of work. Slow, like, payoff,” he says. Niall can practically hear him chewing on his lip and scratching at his elbow, the way he always did when he was voicing an insecurity. “Think I’m doing alright, though.”

“I think you are, too,” Niall says, and he means it. Zayn is a lot of things, always has been, and one of the things he used to be, for awhile, was a mess. He's not anymore. Niall doesn't have to be around him every day to see that.

“‘m sorry,” Zayn says quietly. Niall blinks.

“What for?”

“Making you nervous,” Zayn says. “Making you think I’d, like, disapprove or whatever.”

“It’s my own thing, I guess,” Niall says after a moment. There's a minute where neither of them speak and all Niall hears from Zayn’s end is food - eggs, maybe - crackling in a pan on the stove.

“I have to ask, though--” Zayn says, but then he doesn't.

“What?” Niall prompts. Zayn gives a little hum.

“Are you, like, sure it’s all fake? Like, for him, at least,” he says.

“Why’s everybody asking me that?” Niall grumbles. Zayn hums again.

“Liam or Louis?” he asks. Niall sighs.

“Both,” he says, and doesn't mention Harry. Zayn snorts.

“Well, we all saw the pictures, I presume,” he says. “Shawn looks, like, _proper_ infatuated.”

“Disagree,” says Niall.

“Suit yourself,” Zayn says lightly. “I’ll just give Liam a ring so we can gossip about you.”

“Speaking of Liam and gossip,” Niall says, before he can think better of it, “they’re splitting up, him and Cheryl.”

“Oh, yeah?” Zayn says.

“Announcing it in a couple weeks,” Niall says.

“Well,” Zayn says slowly. “Then, yeah. I’ll, like, give him a ring.”

\---

Niall didn't realize that coming out meant he would be suddenly welcomed into an informal club of bisexual celebrities, but that seems to be exactly what happens.

“Drake says Frank says hi,” Shawn says one day, his legs in Niall’s lap again, as usual. “And he’s open to collaborating with you, if you're interested.” Niall gives him a confused look.

“Frank Ocean?” he says. Shawn nods. “Frank Ocean told Drake to tell me ‘hi’?”

“Well, that part probably isn't true,” Shawn says with a shrug. “Drake’s probably just being nice.”

“Frank Ocean wants to work with me?” Niall says. His brow feels violently furrowed. “But--our music is so different. And--you’re the one who covers him at your shows.” Shawn shrugs again.

“He’s bi, you're bi,” he says. “Must be, like, a brotherhood thing.” Niall stares at him.

“Huh,” he says.

An actress that Niall’s only vaguely heard of tweets out a congratulations to him and then makes an Instagram post about how important it is to bisexual people when anyone with Niall’s level of fame and influence decides to come out with an identity that's so misunderstood by both straight and gay people. Niall DMs her there, says, “Thanks Stephanie ! Not sure how much influence i have on the world in general but I’m doin my best.” She replies with a dozen emojis and a screenshot of several comments on her post from a few guys talking about how empowering it is to see famous men in particular come out as bisexual. Niall binges _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ for the next week.

“Maybe it’s kinda like a sisterhood thing, too,” Shawn says when Niall tells him about it, just before starting the fourth season.

“Weird family thing, more like,” Niall says, tapping out a nonsensical rhythm with his thumb along Shawn’s ankle. “It’s not so bad, I s’pose.”

Alan Cumming spends two whole minutes singing Niall’s praises in an interview with Graham Norton. Niall gets a text from Harry, seething with envy, mere hours later.

Billie Joe Armstrong sends him an elaborate arrangement of pink, purple, and blue flowers, all in dark shades. Niall posts a picture on Instagram to express his gratitude and gets a jealous text from Louis four minutes later.

He receives an email from an unfamiliar address that turns out to belong to Lauren Jauregui. “Got your address from Normani,” she writes. “Just wanted to say I’m proud of you, dude. You're making a huge difference in young men’s lives. Welcome to the family!”

“Weird family thing,” Shawn agrees, after watching the Graham Norton interview and reading Lauren’s email. He presses his face into the navy blue calla lilies and inhales. Niall laughs at him, slides his hand into Shawn’s hair at the back of his head, and shoves his face down a little further.

\---

“I’m bad at this,” Shawn says, wiping his arm across his forehead and grimacing. “It’s hot as fuck and I’m bad at this.” Niall adjusts his stance a little, judges the breeze.

“I’ve seen worse, technically,” he says, before taking a swing at the golf ball. He grunts at the result. It’s not his best work, but then, there are cameras around - somewhere, nearby, watching - and this is a date, after all, so the blogs and the fans will probably put it off to him being distracted by, like, Shawn’s handsomeness or something. He turns to look at Shawn, who is indeed, objectively, handsome, and who is presently making a face at him. “Not _much_ worse, but still.” Shawn laughs.

“Show me again on the next hole?” Shawn asks. He leans against his club, his hip cocked as he squints into the sun behind Niall. “It’ll look good for the cameras,” he adds quietly. Niall nods.

“Classic flirting moves,” he says. “Would look better if you were shorter than me, though.” Shawn throws his head back and laughs again, loud and bright, the happy sound carrying across the green.

“It’s cuter this way,” he says, grinning. Niall could swear he sees a cheeky sparkle in Shawn’s eyes. “Don't you think?”

The thing about pretending to date is that, like, there’s not much actual pretending. That's why Niall’s never understood when fans got mad at what they believed were fake relationships the lads had. Even if Harry and Taylor _had_ only been together for the press, as Niall tried to explain on the bus one day to a rather disinterested audience, they were still going on dates. The dates were real.

“But they're mad because they think the _feelings_ aren't,” Harry said, blinking owlishly at him.

“People date without feelings in real relationships all the time, though, don't they?” Niall said. 

“Jesus, Neil. Do you need a therapist, mate?” Louis said sharply, just as Zayn said, eyes still closed as he rested his head on Liam’s knee, “You're right, though, Nialler.”

And Zayn was right. _Niall_ was right. He knows from personal experience now. He's going to dinner with Shawn, getting coffee with him. He’s sitting in movie theaters and standing in concert crowds next to Shawn. They're holding hands and Shawn’s putting his arm around Niall’s waist and Niall’s standing on his tiptoes to give Shawn quick kisses. Those things are really happening. Cameras snapping around them don't make it any less _really happening_.

Louis keeps sending obnoxious emails to their group chain with pap photos and fan pictures attached. Niall keeps having to see Shawn’s fingers entwined with his across a table at lunch, his own lips brushing against Shawn’s just outside his car. It feels strange to look at them, like they're not even of him at all. But he was there. He felt Shawn’s foot against his shin, saw the flirtatious smile on Shawn’s face. It never feels out of character or strange in the moment, is the thing. It just feels like...them.

 _Is it weird to have to get all cozy like that with him??_ Louis asks one day on the group chain, typed below a photo of Niall and Shawn walking together in Beverly Hills, Shawn pulling Niall close, arm around his shoulders.

 _No,_ Niall writes back. _It's not much different from how we usually are together. It’s just got photgraphic evidence now._

 _WOOOOWWWWW,_ Liam replies to them all, in huge font.

 _WHAT?_ Niall says, mildly annoyed at the implication. He restrains a sigh. Shawn is beside him on the couch, asleep, and Niall knows he needs the rest.

 _I agree with Liam,_ Harry writes.

 _Same,_ Louis says. _Replay, Li._

 _WOOOOWWWWW,_ Liam sends again. The font is even bigger this time.

 _Hate you all,_ Niall types. Shawn stirs then, starts mumbling something. Niall hits _Send_ and pockets his phone.

\---

The main thing that hits him, as he sits in a chair while someone fusses over his eyebrows and brushes powder over his nose, is that he’s _missed_ doing photoshoots with other people. Photoshoots are so boring and awkward without any other subjects around to make it less uncomfortable, less stiff. Even the worst shoots with the rest of the band were tolerable because there were four other people there - well, three, at the end - to trade significant looks with over how awful it was. It wasn’t something he ever thought about, before the hiatus, but he’s grown to dread photoshoots because now it means photoshoots _alone_.

But now - right now - he’s not alone, because Shawn is in the chair next to him, fidgeting and talking about his little sister. It’s a photoshoot for the interview they did with _Attitude_ the week after they came out, and Niall isn’t alone, and neither is Shawn. He thought before that he was in this so Shawn wouldn’t have to go through all of this alone, but he thinks now that it was subconsciously a little for himself as well. Niall feels so light in his chest that he thinks he could float away. 

The makeup artist - Tim, Niall remembers - steps back and surveys Niall. Looking bored but satisfied, he smacks his lips and says, “You’re done, sweetheart,” before moving on to Shawn. Niall takes the opportunity to snatch Shawn’s phone from him to watch the video of Aaliyah he’s been hearing about for five whole minutes. He laughs hard at it, just like Shawn said he would, and then opens the camera to film Shawn getting foundation blended into his skin. 

“I know what you’re doing,” Shawn says, trying not to move his lips too much. Niall looks at the phone screen to see Shawn giving him a sidelong look, not moving his head at all, raising his eyebrow just slightly. Niall laughs again.

“But you look so pretty, Shawn,” he says with a wide grin, looking back up at Shawn’s face. “Give us a kiss.”

“Please don’t,” says Tim, dryly. He waves a lip brush in front of Shawn’s face expectantly. Niall watches as Shawn tilts his chin up and opens his mouth just a little, parting his lips so that Tim can apply the vaguest hint of color. Niall doesn't really know why it’s necessary, considering that it matches Shawn’s own natural lip color perfectly - pink and smooth - and doesn't seem to do anything in the way of changing it in some way, but he figures that's why he’s not a makeup artist.

“You boys are very brave, you know,” Tim says as he spins a fluffy brush of powder over Shawn’s forehead. 

“Oh,” Shawn says, heat rising to his cheeks. He hasn't quite mastered the art of accepting this particular kind of compliment in face-to-face situations. Niall finds it sweet. “Uh, thanks.”

“Yeah, thank you,” Niall says with a nod, although Tim hasn't even spared him a glance since starting on Shawn’s makeup.

“How long have you two been together?” Tim asks, leaning back against the vanity, his eyes narrowing as he turns his focus on Shawn’s hair.

“Almost five months,” Shawn says, his shoulders relaxing. He's clearly more comfortable in the lie. Tim nods and reaches behind him for a can of some sort of hair spray.

“Five monogamous months?” he asks, lazily shaking the can. It sounds pointed even though his tone remains level. Niall blinks.

“Of course,” he answers. Next to him, Shawn has leaned back in his chair, frowning at Tim, whose eyes flick a disbelieving sort of look to Niall before settling back on Shawn’s hair. 

“You sure about that, Shawn?” Tim asks quietly. Shawn shifts even further back, his eyes wide and confused.

“What are you talking about?” he says. Tim sighs heavily, shaking the can with more purpose now. Niall, who’s figured out by now exactly what this is about, bites his tongue.

“Aren’t you worried he’s going to cheat?” Tim asks, louder this time, which is what makes Niall really bristle. Shawn’s arm jerks up abruptly, his hand shoving the hair spray away.

“Why would you ask me something like that? And not him?” Shawn asks. Niall can tell that Shawn already knows the answer, though - it’s in the set of his jaw, the subtle narrowing of his eyes, the pink heat creeping up the back of Shawn's neck.

“And right in front of me,” Niall adds, voice flat. Tim glances at him for a moment before looking back at Shawn.

“Sorry if I offended you,” he says, not sounding sorry at all, “but be real, Shawn. His pool is bigger than yours and mine.”

“Right now his pool - whatever the fuck that means - is just me,” Shawn says with a fierce glare, his whole face red now. “So what’s your fucking deal? Do you seriously think that bisexual people have a monopoly on cheating? Or do you just think they're inherently untrustworthy?” Niall’s eyes drop to Shawn’s chest long enough to see that his breathing has gone shallow. Blinking in surprise, Niall bites his lip, swallows nervously as he looks back up at Shawn’s face.

Niall’s never seen Shawn genuinely angry before. It's...sort of a sight to behold. And to see him like this in defense of Niall is...nice. Comforting. Niall finds himself feeling proud and happy and pleased, for some reason, even though the makeup artist at what's probably one of the most important photoshoots of his life is obviously being rude as fuck. He rubs a hand absently across his throat, suddenly realizing that his own breathing has gone rather shallow, too.

“Are you the only makeup artist here?” Shawn asks, his hand still raised to force Tim to keep his distance.

“I am,” Tim says in a haughty tone, as if he’s daring Shawn to act like an entitled pop star and make a scene to demand new personnel on set at the last minute. Niall bites harder at his lip, his eyes locked on Shawn.

“Then I guess we’re done here,” Shawn says darkly, finally lowering his arm. He shoves backward in his chair and Niall almost jumps at the sound it makes scraping along the tile floor. He follows the movement as Shawn stands, swallows again when he sees the height difference between Shawn and Tim now. Shawn looks down to meet Tim’s eyes for a tense moment before turning toward Niall and reaching toward him, burying his hand in Niall’s hair.

It’s so unexpected that Niall nearly pulls away, nearly flutters his eyes shut, nearly leans into it, but he stays still, just looking up and holding Shawn’s gaze, which seems to have softened considerably in the past few seconds. Niall blinks and realizes his mouth is open. He snaps it shut. For a flash of a moment, Shawn glances at his lips.

“Niall’s hair looks great already,” Shawn says, finally looking away from Niall, setting a glare on an unamused Tim again. “You’re not needed.”

“Fine,” Tim says through gritted teeth, rolling his eyes. He crosses his arms and all but stomps away, and Shawn immediately turns to Niall once more, his shoulders relaxing a bit.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly. Niall blinks at him. Shawn’s hand is still in his hair.

“I’m good,” he says, which isn't exactly a lie. Shawn glances around and pauses for a moment - Niall can see his eyes settling on his manager having a heated discussion with Tim. He looks back down at Niall, drops his hand to his side, and opens his mouth to speak, but the photographer appears next to them, looking frazzled and highly caffeinated.

“Ready to start?” he asks. He blinks at Niall. “Oh, your hair looks good, dude.”

It’s not an awkward shoot at all, which is surprising given how much more intimate it is compared to every other shoot Niall’s ever done. There's no nudity or anything like it, but he and Shawn stay close for every shot, hold hands, look at each other. He feels guilty at first for how they keep giggling at one another, but the photographer and creative director love it, encourage more of it, say they want these pictures to look as real as possible.

It’s yet another thing that's really happening, even if it's fake.

In the car afterward, Shawn reaches over across the console and squeezes Niall’s thigh. Niall stops singing along to the radio and turns to look at him, eyebrows raised.

“You sure you're okay?” Shawn asks, glancing back and forth between Niall and the stop light ahead of them as he brings the car to a stop. Niall blushes a little, ducks his head, and shrugs.

“Not like I’m a stranger to that sort of shit,” he says. “Bit new for it to be so fucking blatant, though. Usually nobody just outright says to me, ‘You're bi so you must be incapable of being faithful because you just want to fuck anything that moves,’ you know? Or--well, I guess it wasn't to me, was it?”

“I could've fucking decked him, I swear,” Shawn says lowly. Niall takes in the set of Shawn’s jaw - angry again, at just the memory. He feels warm, deep in his chest, but that could be just the Los Angeles summer heat.

“Probably best that you didn't,” Niall says. Shawn shakes his head.

“Obviously I knew that, like, biphobia is a thing, but jesus fucking christ,” he says. “Some guys like me _really_ don't trust guys like you. And just because you don't like men _exclusively_!? I mean, what the fuck?”

“As long as _you_ trust me, I’m good,” Niall says. “Couldn't give less of a fuck about what anyone else thinks of me.”

“I do trust you,” Shawn says softly, turning his head to look at Niall. Niall can only maintain a smile for a few seconds before it falters under the intensity of Shawn’s sincerity. He looks down at Shawn’s hand, still on his leg, and blinks at the size of it, the great breadth of it covering the whole width of Niall’s thigh. He rests his hand over Shawn’s hand, slots his fingers in the spaces between Shawn’s fingers. When he glances back up, he’s got a full smile on again.

“Got everything I need, then, yeah?” 

\---

By the time the awards show is over, Niall is pleasantly buzzed, fueled by coffee and a few whiskeys and the high that always comes with this kind of evening, and he’s dying for either a proper night of partying or a chill time on the sofa in front of the TV in his hotel room. He couldn’t care, as long as Shawn stays with him, one way or another. Shawn’s hand is warm on the small of his back, a solid and steadying presence as they walk out of Radio City Music Hall along with the rest of the crowd. There’s about half a dozen after-parties scheduled to begin now within only five blocks of the venue, and he and Shawn were invited to three of them, and Niall’s just now realizing that none of them will have caterers willing to gamble their liquor license by serving Shawn any alcohol. He turns and says as much, but Shawn must not hear him clearly, because then Shawn is ducking his head lower and slipping his arm around Niall’s waist, pulling Niall closer to him, saying, “What was that?” into his ear. Niall’s skin feels scorching under Shawn’s hand, even through his shirt.

“No one’ll serve you alcohol,” Niall repeats, his head turned, lips brushing against Shawn’s ear. “D’you want to just go back to the hotel? That way we can both get drunk.”

“I don’t mind taking care of you if you get sloppy at one of these parties,” Shawn says. Niall scowls and a smile immediately begins playing on Shawn’s lips.

“‘scuse _you_ ,” Niall says defensively, “I don’t _get_ sloppy - ‘m Irish.” Shawn laughs. Niall finds it hard to keep from grinning himself, and he’s about to repeat his question, really put out an argument for them both just going back to the hotel, when he’s tackled from behind with an aggressive hug that he instantly recognizes.

“Payno!” he shouts, twisting in Liam’s arms and throwing his own around Liam’s neck.

“Nialler!” Liam yells, loud enough to attract some stares that Niall senses more than sees. When Liam pulls back, he’s grinning like a lunatic. He grabs Niall’s face and smacks a kiss on his mouth before his eyes go comically wide as his gaze shifts to Shawn. “Sorry, mate, that’s your territory now, yeah?” But then he grabs Shawn by the face and plants a kiss on his mouth, too.

“See you’ve been drinking,” Niall says with a laugh. Next to him, Shawn is looking a bit dazed. Niall pokes Shawn’s elbow, slips his fingers around his wrist. “Now _this_ one is a sloppy drunk.”

“Hey!” Liam says. “I’m not sloppy; I’m _fun_.”

“Is Louis still telling you that lie?” Niall asks.

“Mate, it’s so good to see you,” Liam says to Shawn, notably ignoring Niall. Shawn smiles.

“You, too, man,” he says. He glances nervously behind Liam. “I think we’re blocking the way--”

“Oh, yeah, we should keep moving, come on,” Liam says, and so they do, Niall and Shawn turning back toward the exit and heading for it, Liam behind them, close like a shadow. They’re nearly at the lobby when Niall gets yanked by his arm to the side, into a tiny corridor he would never have even noticed.

“Wha--” he starts, then lets out a shrieking sort of laugh when he sees Zayn’s beaming face. “Zayn!” Niall bellows, throwing himself at Zayn, who laughs in his ear and twirls him around. Niall feels a wave of relief, deep in his bones.

“Zayn!” Liam exclaims from behind Niall. His tone sounds off, and Niall could probably place it if he wasn’t buzzing and dizzy from Zayn’s hug, but as it is, he peels himself away, lets Liam swoop in for his own embrace. He grins up at Shawn, who’s joined them all in the corridor, and takes his hand. Shawn seems to relax at Niall’s touch, turns to him with a small smile on his face.

“I didn’t know you were gonna be here, mate!” Liam says as he and Zayn break apart.

“Wasn’t really planning on it, like,” Zayn says with a shrug. “Sort of snuck in the back, about to sneak back out. Just wanted to, like, scope it out, try to see you lot.” That makes sense to Niall. Zayn's wearing a backpack, for fuck's sake.

“Come to a party with me,” Liam says, his hand still on Zayn’s shoulder, like he’s determined to single-handedly keep him from leaving. Niall notices that Zayn’s hand is twisted in the pocket of Liam’s leather jacket. Liam doesn’t seem bothered. “Er--with us, I mean,” Liam says, looking at Shawn and Niall. “Wait, which one are you two going to?”

“We were actually going to bail on it,” Shawn says. “I’m not twenty-one yet - they won’t serve me at any of the parties. We’re going back to our hotel to drink.”

“You could all come to mine,” Zayn suggests with a lopsided smile. He turns to look behind him, and for the first time Niall realizes that the four of them aren’t alone in the corridor. A young woman stands back in a corner, tapping at her phone with her thumb and absentmindedly spinning a pack of cigarettes around in her other hand. Niall thinks she might be Zayn’s assistant. “The place looks, like, presentable, right, T?” Zayn asks.

“Yeah, but it reeks of weed, dude,” the girl says, not bothering to look up from her phone. Zayn snorts out a laugh.

“Nothing for that, then,” he mumbles, turning back to Niall, Liam, and Shawn with raised eyebrows. “You in?”

“Definitely,” Liam says eagerly, but Niall exchanges a look with Shawn. 

It’s spectacular, seeing Zayn unexpectedly, but Niall’s not sure he has it in him to go out to someone else’s apartment, drink someone else’s beer, take a single regretful hit someone else’s joint, spend the whole night having to be, like, _on_ , in some way, and not be able to immediately crawl under bed covers as soon as he wants. It’s probably not fair of his brain to categorize Liam and Zayn that way - it’s not like Niall would be surrounded by strangers at a huge party, or even surrounded by acquaintances at a small party, and they both know him even better than Shawn does - but he’s grown so used to sharing his alone time with Shawn and only Shawn that the idea of adding two other people to it makes him feel anxious. Shawn, to Niall’s immense gratitude, seems to read Niall exactly, and feels the same way.

“I’d love it, but I think we’re gonna stick with the hotel,” Shawn says, biting his lip. “Sorry, man. It’d be great to get to know you, but--”

“Oh, shit,” Zayn says, and sticks out his hand, shaking his head. “My bad, mate. Nice to meet you. Your performance was, like, killer.” Shawn laughs and shakes Zayn’s hand.

“Thanks,” he says. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“Heard all about you from these two,” Zayn says, which is a lie, at least where Niall is concerned. Niall raises an eyebrow and gives Liam a sidelong look. Liam makes a face, starts fidgeting. “Congrats on the win, also, like,” Zayn adds, then drops his voice to mutter, “You two put on a good show. Almost forgot you aren’t really….” He punctuates the sentence with a smirk and a shrug, and Niall feels himself blushing, remembering the moment Shawn’s name was announced, when Niall shot up from his seat and whooped excitedly, when the two of them shared a quick kiss with the cameras pointed directly at them. Next to him, Shawn bumps his elbow, and Niall glances up to see him smiling, his cheeks pink.

“It’ll be good, though, like, to catch up, Leeyum,” Zayn continues, drawling Liam’s name as usual and kicking at Liam’s shoe.

“Hey, don’t scuff the sneakers now,” Liam says, but he’s grinning so wide that Niall knows he wouldn’t care if Zayn stole his shoes right off his feet and chucked them into the Hudson.

“Right, well,” Niall says. “We should be going, then.” Zayn pulls him in for another hug, shoving his fingers into his hair like Shawn does. It throws him.

“Seriously, like, any time you’re in New York, yeah?” Zayn says when he releases Niall. “Love to have you over, like. Or even Pennsylvania - you can meet the horse and stuff.”

“You’ve got a horse?” Shawn says.

“He’s got a farm,” Niall says, rolling his eyes. “Told you he was a weirdo.”

“Not all of us grew up, like, with the smell of livestock shit, Nialler,” Zayn says with a sweet smile. “Gotta learn to hate it, I guess.”

“Weirdo,” Niall says to Shawn, in a tone that implies confirmation. Shawn laughs and takes Niall’s hand, intertwines their fingers. Niall looks back to Zayn in time to see him glance down at their hands and share a look with Liam, his eyes glittering with smugness. Niall feels like he’s not entirely in on the joke, but he can figure it out, mostly. He rolls his eyes again. 

“Let’s go, Shawn,” he says, walking backward and tugging Shawn along with him. “The crowd’s thinned out by now.”

\---

It’s not the first time Niall’s accompanied someone to get a tattoo, but it is the first time the tattoo has been in such an intimate location. Shawn is stretched out on the table, one leg dangling off it, wearing nothing below his waist except boxer briefs. In a few minutes, a tattoo gun will be pushing dark ink into the pale skin of Shawn’s inner thigh, just under the bottom hem of his pants. Niall can’t stop staring. He keeps thinking about his own skin there, how soft it is, how much he’s always liked to be kissed there. He keeps remembering how sometimes Harry got hard when he got tattoos, and what if that happens to Shawn now, too, right there under a single layer of cotton, right there for Niall to see. For what must be the seventh time in half an hour, he clears his throat and redirects his gaze to Shawn’s face.

“You’re sure you want to get it there?” he asks. Shawn laughs and reaches out to wrap his long fingers round Niall’s wrist.

“I’m absolutely sure,” he says. “It’s just for me.”

“And anyone getting up close and personal with your junk,” Niall says. Shawn blushes and bites his lip, ducks his head. Niall swallows, looks around to make sure nobody is within hearing distance - Penelope, the artist working on Shawn, is giving an apprentice some advice in the back - and lowers his voice to a near whisper. “Have you--ever--”

“Not with a guy,” Shawn murmurs. He meets Niall’s eyes and opens his mouth, but his artist glides into the booth just then, and he snaps his mouth shut.

“Alright, let’s get this on first,” she says, pressing a small piece of transfer paper to Shawn’s thigh. Niall sees Shawn’s leg twitch and reaches out to rest his hand on Shawn’s knee. When Penelope carefully peels back the paper, there’s an image in purple left on the skin: a small, simple door, ajar. Niall is staring again. Penelope hands Shawn a mirror which he tilts at an angle to see the placement of the drawing. He nods and gives her back the mirror, but turns to Niall anyway.

“How’s it look?” he asks. Niall almost jumps.

“Looks good.” Niall bites the inside of his cheek. Penelope starts up the machine. “Need me to hold your hand?” Shawn laughs.

“Maybe,” he says, and holds out his hand. Niall takes it.

\---

Niall knows there are cameras around somewhere. He posted a picture to Instagram yesterday of Shawn shirtless, streaks of sunscreen on his back not rubbed in yet, captioned it, _Maybe Cozumel wasn’t the wisest place to go to try to beat the heat_ because he knew it would draw more attention to them today when they’re back at the beach. It makes him feel gross, every time he does shit like that, but yesterday he hit _Post_ and moments later Shawn flopped down beside him on the gigantic hammock on the patio outside their resort suite, and twisted his body so that he could rest his legs on Niall’s stomach, the way he’s always done even when they’re surrounded by other people, and Niall dropped his phone immediately in favor of squeezing his hand around Shawn’s ankle and drumming a nonsense beat up and down his calf, so the gross feeling was very short-lived.

Now, he sits down on a towel under a big beach umbrella and looks down to his left, where Shawn’s all stretched out on his own towel, eyes closed, one arm behind his head acting as a pillow. He looks relaxed and warm and pleased, and he’s probably asleep or close to it, and Niall wants to kiss him.

Oh, he--wait.

Niall frowns and tears his gaze away from Shawn, brings up his knees to his chest and brushes sand from his feet. There’s cameras around somewhere - he knows this, because he helped draw them there - and he doesn’t want them to capture the look on his face just now, because he’s not sure what it is. He snatches up his water bottle from the sand and takes a drink, careful still to keep his head ducked down as he tries to think this through as quickly as possible, because the fact of the matter still stands.

He wants to kiss Shawn.

The thought arrived to him out of nowhere, the possibility, the urge. It came unbidden. Because of the cameras, surely. He wasn’t thinking of them at all at the time, but - they’re there, somewhere. He knows that, even subconsciously. Fans and paps want shots of them kissing, acting like a real couple. He and Shawn need to keep selling it, act like a real couple. Real couples want to kiss each other, right? And he only ever wanted to be committed to this, to not ruin it. So that’s it, then. He’s so dedicated to the charade that it’s seeped into his brain, made it seem like the want is from himself and not the himself that’s Shawn’s boyfriend, the himself that’s not entirely real.

But...he’s here, himself. This is real. The beach is real. The heat of the sun beating down on him even through the umbrella is real. The sand stuck stubbornly to his toes is real. The tattoo on Shawn’s inner thigh is real. The fanning of Shawn’s long eyelashes high on his cheekbones is real. The pink of Shawn’s lips is real. Shawn is real. Niall is real. A kiss….

A kiss - a _real_ kiss, not the chaste, close-mouthed pecks they’ve been exchanging for an audience - would be real, too, technically. But it wouldn’t count. It wouldn’t count because Niall isn’t Shawn’s real boyfriend. Shawn should be kissed by a real boyfriend.

Niall bites his lip and sets his water bottle aside again, turns to his side and stretches over Shawn’s body, plants his hand on the towel next to Shawn’s head. He stays there, his face above Shawn’s, for about half a minute, just looking, and when he lowers his face a few inches, he sees Shawn’s eyelids flutter open. Shawn’s eyes go wide for a moment before a corner of his mouth twitches into an almost smile.

“Cameras?” he asks quietly. Niall swallows. Shawn looks at Niall’s mouth.

“Somewhere,” he says. Shawn bites his lip. He leans up to close the last few inches of space between his lips and Niall’s, pulling away again after a second or two. Another chaste, closed-mouth kiss. Because Niall isn’t Shawn’s real boyfriend. Niall pushes away from Shawn, sits up, clears his throat and grabs a bottle of sunscreen from near Shawn’s foot. “Can you get my back again?” he asks, holding the bottle out to Shawn, who sits up to take it.

“Time to re-apply already?” he says with a sleepy grin. Niall snorts.

“Unless you want my skin to burn so bad it bakes my pale Celtic ancestors,” he says. Shawn laughs, big and loud and open, and Niall looks at him and thinks, _Oh_.

 _Oh_ , he thinks. _Oh, shit_.

\---

In the end, after half an hour of arguing with himself and pacing his entire house, it’s Louis he calls.

“Neil!” Louis says when he answers. “So good to hear from you. How’ve you been? Sunburnt from that Mexican vacation with your fake boyfriend? Couldn’t beat the heat but I’m sure you got to beat something else, ri--”

“I’m in love with Shawn,” Niall blurts out, interrupting the dumb joke that Louis already left in a comment on his Instagram post anyway. Louis instantly goes quiet. It would be funny if the silence wasn’t so terrifying. Niall can feel his heartbeat in his neck.

“Oh, _Niall_ ,” Louis says softly, with a sad sigh. It’s a tone that makes Niall feel like his lungs are crumbling inside him. He sits down on the couch, glances over at the end where Shawn usually sits, and doubles over to hug his knees.

“How could I be so stupid, Lou?” he whispers. “How could I fall in love with him? This isn’t even real and he doesn’t even like me like that and I--”

“Oh, _Niall_ ,” Louis says again, his voice somehow even more pitying. “Do you truly believe that?”

“What?” Niall says miserably.

“That he doesn’t even _like_ you like that,” Louis says. “You’re smarter than that, love. You’re so good at reading people. Why can’t you see how he feels about you?”

“God, shut up,” Niall says, standing and beginning his pace around the house again. “This is like, the worst thing that’s ever happened to me and you’re just--you don’t know him, you don’t--”

“Alright, okay,” Louis says placatingly. “Sorry, this is about you right now, you’re right. Is there anything specific you would like me to say, then?” Niall stops in the doorway of the guest room where Shawn sleeps when he’s here, where he slept that first night, when the news hit and they sent out those tweets. Niall stares at the bedside table. Shawn hasn’t slept here in over a week, but one of his Armani watches rests there like an afterthought, like a reason for Shawn to keep coming over. Niall bites his lip.

“Tell me how to stop,” he says. He feels pathetic in about seven different ways. After a few long moments, Louis scoffs.

“Like it’s that easy, mate,” he says, eye rolling evident in his tone. “Look, Neil, do you really want to know what I think?”

“No,” Niall says, and he isn’t really joking. Louis ignores him.

“I think you should tell him,” he says. “I think you should tell Shawn how you feel. This sucks, alright, but it’s only going to stay that way if you do that thing where you bottle it up and try to act like everything’s fine for the sake of the other person. D’you remember when Zayn left?” It’s Niall’s turn to scoff.

“Not at all! Fuck, did he leave, then? When was this?” he says, painfully sarcastic.

“Fuck off,” Louis says, but there’s no bite to it. “Remember when he left and I like, went off the rails, and Harry basically disappeared, and Liam was _deep_ in his feelings all day every day, so you just like, turned yours off?”

“I didn’t _turn my feelings off_ ,” Niall says, annoyed. He backs out of the guest room and shuts the door behind him.

“I know, I _know_ ,” says Louis. “I _know_ you were just quietly having a feeling or two, alright, I know that, but _effectively_ , you went sort of robot on us. And we were all horrible and selfish and never properly talked to you so you just...dealt. On your own. It shouldn’t have been that way, Nialler. It shouldn’t ever be that way. You shouldn’t have to just simmer in big feelings like that for so long, you know? Some things are too big to carry on your own.”

“I’ve been taking care of myself since I was a kid, Tommo,” Niall says quietly. “I can handle this.” Louis sighs.

“But you don’t _have_ to,” he says. “You said Shawn’s your friend, right? One of your best friends. Now, I don’t know him personally, but from what Liam has told me--”

“ _What_ is Liam _telling_ you lot?” Niall exclaims.

“--he seems like a very gentle, caring soul,” Louis continues, as if Niall hasn’t said anything at all. “And if you two are as close as you say then I assure you, he’d want to know about any developments that might make your arrangement uncomfortable.”

“Oh, fuck,” Niall says. “Yeah, we should just--”

“ _Do not just stage a breakup_ ,” Louis says sharply. Niall frowns. “Don’t be so fucking _simple_. Just--” Louis lets out a frustrated groan. Niall can almost hear him swiping his hand over his face in exasperation. “Just _talk_ to him, Niall. I am willing to bet that you will be very pleasantly surprised.” Niall pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head.

“Right. Guess I’ll try that, then,” he says, with absolutely no intention of trying that.

\---

Watching Shawn perform is _electric_. This was true before Niall realized he was in love with Shawn and it’s true now that he has. It’s true at normal concerts and at awards shows and at festivals. It’s true in Japan and in Portugal and in Manchester and here, in Austin. Niall gets caught up in it, in the music that he’d love anyway even if he never met Shawn at all. The heat and the beer in his hand and the ecstatic crowd and his side-stage view of Shawn’s tight jeans, of Shawn’s hands on his guitar, of Shawn’s gaze going soft when he looks to the right and finds Niall’s eyes - Niall feels like there’s a frayed wire looping around in his veins, like he’s going to burst into glorious, necessary flame any moment.

“You know how fires are like, a natural part of forest life?” he says to Shawn on the ride back to their hotel. “How it’s just a normal part of the whole process of nature? Because you need destruction in order to have creation at all, and even though it seems like this big horrible thing, it actually makes new things grow and helps other things reproduce and continues the general life cycle of the forest?” Shawn, sweaty and euphoric still from the stage, grins dopily at him.

“Yeah?” he says. Niall laughs, exhilarated and tired.

“That’s how I feel right now,” he says. Shawn blinks slowly, bites his lip.

“So are you gonna write that song or am I?” he asks. Niall cackles.

“We should write it together,” he says, bending over in his seat, reaching out to touch Shawn’s ankle. Shawn laughs, moves so his legs are across Niall’s lap. Niall brushes his fingertips over the soft skin there, drags his thumbnail gently over the knot of bone, and pretends that the shiver Shawn gives in response is because he’s affected by Niall’s touch. “All it takes is one spark,” he murmurs as the car comes to a stop behind the hotel. That’s when it hits him suddenly, something he had a mild anxiety attack over when they first checked in this afternoon, something he’s forgotten in the busy buzz of the night.

There’s only one bed in their room. 

They’ve managed to get through any hotel stays since this whole thing started by booking suites with two rooms, or, a couple of memorable times, one big room with two beds. It’s not like they haven't fallen asleep on the same bed before, but--that was always accidental, and on top of the sheets. They’ve never settled in for a proper night of sleep together in the same bed, within arm’s reach of each other. Maybe Niall could've coped with it easily enough before, at the beginning of this arrangement, when he didn't know he was in love with Shawn. Now, though, the thought makes his head spin with panic.

“I can sleep on the couch,” Shawn offers for the third time since they learned of the booking mix-up, as Niall stands near the bed and rubs anxiously at the back of his neck.

“Don't be stupid,” Niall says, dropping his hand to his side. “You deserve a good night’s sleep after that show. _I’ll_ sleep on the couch.”

“Now who’s being stupid?” Shawn says, laughing. “My Canadian DNA will not let you take the couch while I sleep on a comfortable bed. Just share it with me.” He shrugs. “I’m sure someone will ask me at some point what it’s like to wake up next to you anyway.” Niall huffs out a laugh and hopes it doesn’t sound as nervous as he feels.

“I love to hold you close tonight and always,” he sings, which turns out to be a bad idea, because while Shawn is throwing his head back with laughter before taking the next lyric, Niall ends up staring at his bared neck, imagining all the marks he could leave.

“So we’ll piss off the neighbors,” Shawn riffs loudly as he wanders into the bathroom.

“Could do,” Niall murmurs, still frozen in place beside the bed. He shakes himself out of it when he hears water running. He should probably shower, too, but the reality of the situation has hit him with a sudden heavy exhaustion, and anyway he doesn't think that getting into the shower right after Shawn, which would undoubtedly facilitate a vivid picture of what he might’ve looked like with water cascading down his body, would be productive--

Well.

 _Beneficial_.

Niall shakes his head again. He can’t start thinking about that right now, not when he’s about to get into bed and very much _not_ have a wank. He sighs, shrugs out of his shirt, and shoves his jeans and pants off before changing into sweatpants. He sits on the bed and picks up his phone to see he’s been tagged in an Instagram comment by Liam. 

The photo is one that Shawn posted earlier today, before his set, when Niall was feeling the unpleasant combination of hungry and tipsy and too fucking hot in the Texas afternoon sun and Shawn was pressing his lips to Niall’s hairline, picking melting ice cubes out of a plastic cup and rubbing them up and down Niall’s arms and along the back of his neck. Niall took Shawn’s phone from where it was resting on his knee and took a selfie that showed himself looking sunburned and sweaty in Shawn’s arms. He didn't expect Shawn to post it, but then it appeared on Niall’s feed, filtered through grayscale and captioned, _At the end of the road, I see you with me._

**@liampayne**  
_Nice seeing you look so in love, shawn! Thnx for taking care of Nialler @niallhoran_

Shawn does look in love in the picture, is the thing. His eyes are open but unfocused, surely only taking in the miserable state of Niall’s hair, but his whole body gets the lie across: grip strong on Niall’s arms; a small lift of the corner of his mouth; broad shoulders curved inward like he's protecting Niall from the big bad heat even though his own skin was just as hot and sweaty. Niall reads the caption again and again, wishes they’d never started this pattern of captioning the sweeter photos of themselves with each other’s lyrics. Shawn is so damn _good_ at maintaining this stupid facade. That line makes it sound like they’re talking about forever.

Niall lets out a quiet, frustrated groan and tosses his phone aside, takes to staring at his open suitcase. He’s agonizing over whether or not he should wear a shirt to bed tonight - he never does, but it might make Shawn feel awkward if he didn’t, but _god_ , he wants to lie next to Shawn and feel his body heat, wants a chance at an accidental touch even if it means nothing to Shawn - when the bathroom door opens. He looks up to see Shawn with boxers clinging low on his hips, his bare chest tinted pink, nipples peaked in the cool air of the room. Niall swallows and forces his gaze upward to Shawn’s sleepy face.

“‘s’it okay if I sleep without a shirt?” Shawn asks. “I don't usually wear--”

“Of course,” Niall says, grateful for an easy solution to his dilemma. Neither of them will wear shirts, then. No problem. “I never wear one to bed either.” Shawn smiles, wide and kind.

“Cool,” he says. “Honestly I’m so tired I’m not sure I could stay awake long enough to put one on anyway.”

“No pillow talk from you after all, then?” Niall says with a grin. Shawn snorts out a laugh and crosses to the bed as Niall scoots up toward the pillows. He maneuvers the covers down without ever leaving the surface of the bed, making Shawn laugh harder in the process, and together they flick off the lamps by their respective bedsides and arrange themselves under the sheets. Their shoulders touch and Shawn doesn’t move. Neither does Niall.

“I’m glad I’m doing this, with you,” Shawn says softly into the darkness. “I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else.”

“I wouldn’t want you doing this with anyone else either,” Niall says. The truth of it stings his throat. Eventually Shawn _will_ be doing this with someone else, only it will be real, thoroughly and completely. Niall wonders if he can really stand to write another entire album about heartbreak and unrequited love.

“It wouldn’t work with anybody else,” Shawn murmurs sleepily, curling onto his side, facing away from Niall. “Only you.” Niall hums.

“Good night, Shawn,” he says. “Sleep tight.” Shawn breathes out, a loud exhale like he was trying to return the sentiment but sleep took him before he could get the words out. Niall turns away, too, and closes his eyes.

He wakes up on his opposite side, his arm around Shawn, who’s curled up still, but on his other side as well, his face tucked into the crook of Niall’s neck. Niall can feel Shawn’s breath against his skin, can smell Shawn’s shampoo. His hand is splayed across Shawn’s strong back. He’s wondering if he can get away with moving his hand up or down, running his fingers along Shawn’s spine, when he realizes suddenly that Shawn is hard. Niall can feel it against his thigh, and now he’s hard, too, his heart pounding so hard in his chest that he worries it might awaken Shawn. He peels himself away from Shawn’s body, careful not to wake him, and tiptoes to the bathroom, locking the door behind him and immediately stepping into the shower, turning the water on full blast. He stands under the spray, head down, and breathes deeply.

It’s not like it means anything. Niall’s not stupid - Shawn is twenty years old, so of course he woke up hard. Most days Niall still does, too. It has nothing to do with who he’s sleeping with, or if he’s even sleeping with anyone at all. Niall isn’t the _reason_ for Shawn’s present condition. _Obviously._ Niall sighs, splashes some water on his face, and slips his hand down his chest and stomach to his own hard cock. He shouldn’t do this now, not with Shawn _right there_ , asleep, trusting that Niall isn’t jerking off to fantasies of him, but….

Niall swallows, tilts his head back a bit, out of the spray of water, and grips tighter, starts moving his fist slowly. It’s just so _easy_ to imagine sharing this with Shawn, the two of them crowding each other in the shower. He closes his eyes and pictures it: Shawn, tall and broad-shouldered and gloriously naked before him, kissing him, throwing his head back and groaning when Niall begins sucking hard at his neck. In Niall’s mind, Shawn pushes him against the wall of the shower, so Niall walks two steps backward until his back hits the wall, ghosts his own fingers down his chest and pretends the touch is Shawn’s.

“Can I?” the Shawn in his head asks, and the Niall he is in the fantasy knows what Shawn wants to do, knows it because they’ve done this before. He nods but turns first, rests his forehead on the cold wall and wishes it was Shawn’s warm chest instead. He adjusts his hand around his cock and gasps, imagines it’s Shawn’s big hand and it’s wrapped around both of their dicks, jerking them together. He’s seen the way Shawn touches microphones, thinks he knows some of what Shawn would do - tease the head of Niall’s cock with his thumb, twist gently at the base, drive Niall _fucking_ mad. Niall wants to touch Shawn’s stomach, feel the muscles twitch there as Shawn fucks up into his own fist alongside Niall’s dick, so he flattens his hand low against the wall, curls his fingers to scratch at the tile like it’s Shawn’s skin.

“Please, Shawn,” he breathes. His words wouldn’t be heard even if the water wasn’t drowning out the sound. Niall licks his lips. “Come for me. I wanna feel you--” He can hear Shawn’s whimper so clearly, can taste Shawn’s kiss so deeply that it almost feels real. He cracks his eyelids open to see the pink head of his cock disappearing and reappearing in his fist, imagines what it would look like to watch Shawn come, to see his cock covered with it, to see it splattered on the swallow tattoo on Shawn’s hand. He gasps against the damp wall, closes his eyes again and comes, white streaks painting the tile for a few moments before the water rinses away the evidence. Niall shudders and slumps along the wall, curses under his breath and turns the water hotter so the red of his face won’t seem obvious.

Shawn is awake when Niall steps out of the bathroom, on his phone and sitting up against the headboard. He looks up at Niall and smiles, his own face flushed.

“You look like you slept well,” Niall says, rubbing the towel behind his ear again. He tugs self-consciously at the waistband of his sweats and pretends he doesn’t see Shawn’s eyes follow the movement. 

“Not a bad night,” Shawn says. “You want to order in breakfast?”

\---

It’s Niall’s publicist, this time, who brings it up.

Niall and Shawn are sitting on the sofa in the green room at the Late Late Show, waiting for James to get out of his writers’ meeting and pay attention to them. _Ask me something_ , Niall posts in his Instagram stories, then he sits back and lets the questions roll in and he drums his thumb on Shawn’s ankle. Moments later, Shawn begins moving his other foot, tapping just slightly at the air, a complementary beat to the one playing out on his ankle. Niall grins at him.

“Have the two of you thought about how this breakup is going to go?” Niall’s publicist asks suddenly, from the other side of the room. Niall’s face falls, but so does Shawn’s.

“What?” Niall says.

“You have to end it sometime,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “There has to be a breakup. Probably better to do it sooner than later, in my opinion, but either way, we should start talking about the how and the when. We don’t want either of you to come out of this looking like the bad guy.” Niall stares at her.

“Right,” he says. He glances over at Shawn, who looks strangely stricken. Niall bites his lip, clears his throat, and the noise seems to bring Shawn out of his haze.

“We’ll figure it out,” Shawn says, his voice high and tense. He meets Niall’s eyes and shrugs. “We’ll figure something out.” 

“Hello, boys!” James calls as he opens the door. Niall’s spirits are instantly lifted as he and Shawn jump up and James pulls them both into an aggressive hug. “You ready for some carpool karaoke?”

Niall scrolls through the questions he received on Instagram as he leans his hip against the car, waiting as Shawn gets his microphone set up. He answers the easier ones, about his next album and Ireland and Liam’s new song, and then another one catches his eye.

_How do forest fires start? - Shawn xo_

He glances up at Shawn, sees him speaking so politely to the crewmembers around him, and smiles down at his phone, gets to typing an answer.

 _All it takes is one spark._

\---

“You know what’s like, so unfair about this whole thing?” Shawn says.

They’re at a hotel again, a resort in Ibiza, where they’re meant to be discussing breakup strategies, just the two of them, before taking it to their teams and working out a real plan. But they’ve just been hanging out like they always do, guitars in hand sometimes, the TV remote others. Both of them are pleasantly tanned from the hours they’ve spent these past few days on the beach and their swim trunks are hanging over the shower curtain rod. They’re sitting on Shawn’s bed now, room service trays between them as they eat a very late dinner, and their ankles are crossed over one another’s. Shawn tears into a waffle with his bare hands.

“Jesus,” Niall mutters. “What’s that, then?”

“We’ve been doing this whole fake dating thing for months now, right?” Shawn says. “So if I do date someone after this, they’re going to expect me to be, like, _good_ at kissing. But I still haven’t ever been kissed by a guy - like, not a real kiss, you know? Not that I haven’t enjoyed the chaste, established-relationship pecks on the lips from you.” Niall snorts.

“I’m _much_ better than all that, for the record,” he says without thinking. “I’m a _great_ kisser. I’ve got references.”

“Oh?” Shawn says. Niall looks up to see him grinning. “Do you want to be my first real kiss of my out gay life?” Niall laughs nervously, his stomach swooping.

“Come on, you’ve kissed girls,” he says. “It’s not much different.”

“Yeah, but--” Shawn looks down. He clears his throat. “I don’t know - kissing feels different when you mean it, doesn’t it? And this--with a guy, I mean, I’d--I’d mean it. Not that I didn’t with my exes and stuff, not that I didn’t care about them, but--” He looks back up, biting his lip. Niall very resolutely does not look at his mouth. “It’s gotta _feel_ different, eh? I might be really disappointed if it doesn’t.”

“You won’t be disappointed,” Niall says softly. He pushes his tray of empty plates away and glances toward the bathroom door, then back to Shawn. “You really want it to be me?” Shawn smiles.

“You’re an expert,” he says, and then his features soften. “And, I mean, there’s nobody else I’d rather it be, really. You’re like, my best friend. You’ve been right here with me through all of this.”

“Seems only right that you get out of this fake relationship with one damn good kiss, yeah?” Niall says. Shawn laughs and nods.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Alright,” Niall says. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth, and then I’m gonna come back in here, and we’re gonna kiss.” Shawn nods again.

“Good plan,” he says. Niall’s already halfway to the bathroom. He brushes his teeth with perhaps a bit too much vigor, does a cursory flossing, swishes more water around in his mouth. He’s got one shot at this. It feels so miraculous that he might as well have been blessed with genuine magic: a single kiss with Shawn. He wants it to be perfect, everything Shawn wants it to be, something Shawn will compare any and all future boyfriends to and find them lacking. They’ll tell the public they’ve broken up soon, and this whole thing in big picture terms will have been fake, but--the dates, the bed, this one kiss? That will be real. Niall will get to hold that in his rib cage forever.

“I guess I should brush my teeth, too?” Shawn says, a question, when Niall walks out of the bathroom and back toward the bed. Niall shakes his head.

“You’ve just been eating waffles,” he says as he sits down beside Shawn. “Like, all the waffles in Spain, probably, but that’s it. Not a bad taste.” Shawn smiles, breathes out a laugh.

“They’re good waffles,” he says, sitting up straighter. “You can have the last two, if you want.”

“Maybe after,” Niall says. He can’t help but smile, looking at Shawn, his hair curling over his forehead, the blush resting high on his cheeks, his tongue darting out to lick his lips, the same lips that will be on Niall’s shortly. Niall licks his own.

“Okay,” Shawn says. “Like this? Or--standing? I’m at the whim of your expertise.” Niall snorts.

“You’re too fucking tall,” he says. “It’d be like kissing a giraffe. Sitting is fine, just let me--” Shawn shoves his food tray to the other side of the bed and Niall moves closer, close enough to touch the side of Shawn’s face, to rub his thumb over Shawn’s jaw. In what must be unintentional but feels strongly to Niall like a targeted attack from which he will never recover, Shawn’s eyes flutter shut for a moment and he raises his hand to encircle Niall’s wrist with his fingers. Niall licks his lips again. “Ready?” he asks. Shawn nods. Niall leans forward.

Shawn does taste like waffles, a soft sweetness to his mouth that beckons Niall to deepen the kiss. He’s trying to memorize every tiny detail of this to carry with him when it ends: the willing way Shawn’s lips part under his, the contented little sigh Shawn gives as he relaxes into it, the eager curl of Shawn’s tongue against his. He’s _trying_ , trying to turn off the thinking part of his brain and let the collecting part take over, but he just can’t shut it off, can’t help thinking--

Soon this will be over, and he and Shawn will still be friends, and Shawn will eventually get a boyfriend - a _real_ one - and then that guy will have all of this. Niall will have to hang out with Shawn’s boyfriend knowing what Shawn’s kiss feels like, knowing he’ll never have that again, knowing that the other guy does, whenever he wants. The boyfriend might know about this kiss, might have been told by Shawn that he just wanted to get his first gay kiss over with, that he wishes he waited for someone he loved. The thought hits him like a punch, and he pulls away suddenly, pushes up and off the bed, steps away from a blinking, confused Shawn.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have--” Niall starts, hugging his own chest. “I shouldn’t have done that. We shouldn’t--”

“Was it that bad?” Shawn asks weakly. Niall can’t even laugh.

“It was perfect,” he says, looking down at his feet. “It was _perfect_. You’re so perfect. I’m so selfish, I just--I took advantage of your, like, vulnerability.”

“What?” Shawn says.

“You should’ve waited for a man you really love,” Niall says. “Someone you really care about.”

“Niall, if you didn’t want to kiss me, you--”

“I did!” Niall exclaims, rubbing his hand over his throat and finally looking up. “I did want to--I do-- _fuck_ , I do, but I--Shawn, that could’ve been a really special thing, and I took it from you because I just--”

“You didn’t take anything from me I didn’t want to give,” Shawn says softly. Niall covers his face with his hands.

“Don’t say that, Shawn, please,” he says. “You don’t know--you don’t--”

“What don’t I know?”

“I’m in love with you, Shawn,” Niall says. It comes out muffled and broken. He sighs, slumping his shoulders and dropping his hands, and looks up at the stunned expression on Shawn’s face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fuck this up and make it messy and complicated. I didn’t even know until Mexico.”

“You’re in love with me?” Shawn asks, voice quiet and pitched high. Niall sighs and shakes his head at himself. He’s ruined this. He’s ruined every fucking thing about this.

“Yes, Shawn, I’m in love with you,” he says to the floor. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t even realize he’s moving until he’s well out of the room, out of the suite, in the stairwell, running down, and at that point it makes as much sense to keep going as it does to stop. Niall ends up at the pool, muttering apologies in Spanish to the hotel staff tasked with keeping it open for him this late. He doesn’t even swim. He just sits at the edge, his feet in the water, and loses track of time as he tries to not think about Shawn. It’s difficult to do, though, when Shawn shows up a few minutes later.

“Thought the pool closes at 10,” he says, taking a seat beside Niall, who doesn’t look up until he sees Shawn’s feet plunge into the water next to his. 

“Weird perk to being famous,” Niall says flatly. “Don’t know why they don’t put it in the brochure. You wouldn’t believe how many hotel staff Harry kept up going for a swim in the dead of night.”

“I probably would, actually,” Shawn says. He bumps Niall’s ankle so briefly that Niall isn’t sure if it was an accident or not. He doesn’t ask. Shawn takes a deep breath. “So, uh, I have something to confess to you, and I’m hoping it will cheer you up rather than make you hate me.”

“Please don’t tell me you love me, too, just because you feel sorry for me,” Niall says. “I swear, like, I’ll lose my mind if you do that.” Shawn huffs and knocks Niall’s knee with his. 

“My innate politeness doesn’t extend that far,” he says. “No, listen - do you remember, at the very beginning of all this, when I first told you about the idea, and told you that it wasn’t mine?”

“Yeah,” Niall says. It feels like such a long time ago now, back when he hadn’t fucked everything up.

“Well,” Shawn says. He bites his lip, takes a moment to breathe again before continuing, “I, um, I lied about that. It _was_ my idea, sort of.” Niall blinks at him.

“‘Sort of’?”

“I didn’t come up with the fake relationship thing,” Shawn says. “Like, I’d never--but they suggested it, and I said your name, like, I just blurted it out immediately, and then--”

“Why?” Niall asks, brow furrowed, because he can’t understand--”Why’d you say my name?” Shawn gives him a sad look, something like self-pitying.

“Because they said ‘boyfriend’ and you were the first person to come to mind,” he says quietly. “And you came to mind, I mean, _instantly_ , because you’re--what I wanted. You’re what I want. You’re the only--” He sighs. “Do you really not know? I thought I was so obvious - not that I wanted to be. Fuck, I wanted it to be _very_ well hidden, preferably forever, and then you agreed to it and it was so fucking _easy_ to touch you and look at you the way I always wanted to anyway. It wasn’t hard pretending to be in love with you, Niall, because I didn’t have to pretend, not even once.”

Niall stares, open-mouthed and disbelieving. “You're in love with me?” Shawn is, Niall’s just now noticing, blushing furiously.

“There's some role reversal, eh?” he says. He’s smiling but his voice is shaky. “Yes, Niall, I’m in love with you.” He knocks their knees together again, then hooks Niall’s ankle with his own. “Do you think we could, like, do this thing for real?”

“‘This thing’?” Niall repeats. His mind has gone all swimmy with Shawn’s confession, with the actual, honest to God, real life situation they find themselves in right now. He breaks into a slow grin. “You’ve had me as your boyfriend for a trial period and you still want me? Not sick enough of me to cancel your subscription?” Shawn throws back his head and laughs. The wonderful sound of it bounces happily around the pool.

“I’m very happy with my experience,” he says, biting his lip. “I’d love to bump up to a premium membership, actually, if that's what you want, too.”

“I’m intrigued,” Niall says. “What comes with premium?” Shawn gives him a flash of a dirty grin and a surprised laugh bubbles out of Niall. “ _You_ , I s’pose?”

“And you, too,” Shawn says, ducking his head. “If you want.”

“I want,” Niall says quietly. He clears his throat. “I want to kiss you again, and not run away this time, you know? But, uh--” He glances behind them to wear two hotel staff members are leaning against the wall of the building. Neither of them are paying Niall and Shawn any attention, and one might be asleep, but still. This _means_ something now. This isn't for cameras or witnesses. This is just _theirs_. Niall wants to keep it that way.

They barely get back inside their suite before they're kissing again, standing this time. Shawn backs Niall up against the wall and Niall practically climbs his body in response. It's a feverish kiss, needy and relieved and electrified. It’s likely not at all like kissing a giraffe. Niall swallows every sweet sound Shawn makes as he fists his hands in the collar of Shawn’s shirt, tries in vain to pull him even closer. He can feel that Shawn’s hard, feel it pressing against his own cock through inconvenient layers of stupid denim and cotton, and he lets out a truly embarrassing moan when Shawn rolls his hips forward. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Shawn whispers into Niall’s mouth. He slides his hands from Niall’s shoulders down to the backs of his thighs and lifts Niall up, starts walking them carefully toward his room, and it's the fucking _sexiest thing_ Niall’s ever experienced, but--

“Wait, wait, we should--” Niall says suddenly, breaking away from Shawn’s lips. Shawn lets him go, lets him get his feet on the floor.

“What? What? Did I do something wrong?” Shawn asks, clearly distressed. Niall shakes his head.

“No, no, we should just--” Niall presses his hand flat to Shawn's chest, looks down at their feet, tries to regain some composure. “This is real now,” he says softly. “Fully real. I want to do this right - take you out on honest dates, you know, work up to--where this is going.” He looks up at Shawn’s face. “Let’s take it slow, yeah? Just--let’s _try_ to take it slow.”

“Okay,” Shawn nods, although he doesn't look totally convinced. 

“I don't want to rush this,” Niall says as he walks quickly backwards to the door of his room. 

“Okay,” Shawn says again. He’s still standing there. Niall licks his lips.

“I have to--” he says, and makes a vague gesture which he hopes Shawn interprets as something like, _retreat_. “Or else I’ll--” Another ambiguous gesture: _give in_. Shawn raises his eyebrows. Niall clears his throat as he bumps into the wall next to his door. “Good night!” He scrambles inside his room, closing the door behind him.

“Smooth,” he mutters, rolling his eyes at himself. He sits on the edge of his bed and rubs a hand over his face. He should take a cold shower. He hears Shawn’s door shut and wonders if he’ll be taking a cold shower, too, or if he’ll just be stretching out on the bed, the same bed where they were kissing earlier, and slipping his hand into his pants--

“Shower,” Niall says resolutely, but his phone rings. _Shawn._ He swallows, takes a deep breath, answers. “Hi.”

“I respect your decision and all,” Shawn says right away, “but I just have to know: do you think there's even a remote chance I don't want this?” Niall winces.

“I don't want to push you,” he says. He swallows again. Fuck, his mouth is so dry. “I don't want to make you feel like--”

“You're not pushing me into anything I don't really fucking want, darling,” Shawn says. Niall’s face goes warm at the pet name. “Do you think I haven’t thought about it?”

“I--”

“You want to know how you make me feel?” Shawn asks. His voice is low and rough and promising. Heat blooms in Niall’s belly. “You want me to tell you?”

“Yes,” Niall says, his hand going instinctively to press against the bulge in his shorts.

“Fuck,” Shawn says. “You make me so _hard_ , Niall, all the time. I want you to feel it next time, even if it's just through my jeans or whatever - I want you to know for yourself.”

“Yeah,” Niall says, nodding. “Yeah, I can touch you next time.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Shawn says again. “I want--I want to blow you. You looked so _good_ in Mexico, Niall - that's when you realized you love me, you said? _Fuck._ If you’d asked, I would've dropped to my knees right there on the beach. I can't wait to--I might not be any good but--”

“There's no way you won't be good at sucking my cock,” Niall says, putting Shawn on speaker and standing to quickly shed his clothes before settling onto his back on the bed. “Not with a mouth like yours.”

“Yeah? You like my mouth?” Shawn says smugly. Niall wishes he was there to kiss him quiet. “God, I want you to--I want you to fuck my mouth. So bad. Will you do that for me? Make me choke on it?”

“Jesus,” Niall mutters, working his hand slowly up and down his cock, teasing his thumb over the head. “Yeah, yeah, if you want--”

“I _want_ ,” Shawn gasps, and Niall suddenly hears a familiar wet sound, a rhythm faster than he’d ever set himself.

“Fuck, are you--” Niall immediately speeds up his own hand, fucks up into his fist to match Shawn’s pace.

“Yeah, yeah,” Shawn breathes. “You are, too.” It’s not a question. Niall shudders.

“Tell me what you want,” he says.

“Everything - _fuck_. I want to give you everything--want you to fuck me.” Shawn says, his tone going high at the end with a whimper. Niall wishes he could see Shawn now, watch him getting himself off. He bites back a groan, tightens his grip on his cock.

“I will,” Niall says breathlessly. “I bet you’ll feel so damn good around me, yeah? So tight.”

“Yeah, I want to make you feel good,” Shawn says. “Want you to have me however you want me - on my hands and knees, on my back, wanna ride you--” Niall gasps at that, can picture it so clearly, staring up at Shawn as he throws his head back and sets the pace. Niall could lean up and suck marks into Shawn’s neck and chest, could pull Shawn’s hair, make Shawn cry out for him.

“Fuck, _fuck_ ,” Niall says. “I can’t--I’m not going to--”

“You can come on my face,” Shawn offers. “Would you? If I was there, on my knees for you?”

“Thought you wanted me to choke you with it?” Niall says, biting his lip. He’s so _close_.

“Pull out and leave me gasping for air,” Shawn says, interrupting himself with a whine, “and then come on my face.” The image and Shawn’s voice is the final push for Niall. He comes with a low groan over his fist and stomach, shuddering out Shawn’s name. It takes him a minute to catch his breath, but once he does, he realizes--

“Shit, do you still need to--”

“I already did,” Shawn says breathlessly, sounding a little embarrassed.

“I missed it?” Niall feels kind of disappointed. “You were so quiet about it.”

“I won’t be when you’re here,” Shawn says softly. “I promise.”

“Better not,” Niall murmurs. His eyelids and his limbs feel so heavy. “I want to hear you.”

“You will,” Shawn says. He sounds sleepy. Niall closes his eyes.

“Swear I don’t usually fall asleep right after sex,” he says. He’s pretty sure it comes out slurred. Shawn hums, but if he replies, Niall doesn’t hear it.

He wakes up completely naked, on top of the sheets next to his phone, with come dried uncomfortably on his stomach. He groans in disgust and rolls his eyes at himself, takes a quick shower, and pulls on his swim trunks. Leaving a note for Shawn, he goes down to the pool. It’s open now, and while it’s still too early to be full of people, Niall is by no means alone. A couple of girls approach him while he’s sitting on the edge just like he did last night, nervously asking for photos with him.

“Is Shawn Mendes here with you?” one asks, as her friend is checking the picture she just took.

“He’s sleeping in,” Niall says, then rolls his eyes and smiles. “Lazy.”

Shawn arrives half an hour later, squinting in the sunlight. He stands awkwardly by the chair Niall has claimed, rubbing anxiously at his elbows, and Niall pushes himself out of the pool to join him.

“Good morning, petal,” he says, poking Shawn’s arm. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m--” Shawn says, biting his lip. He looks away for a moment before looking back down at Niall. “I’m sorry for the phone sex,” he blurts out, rushed but quiet, a blush creeping up his neck. “You wanted to take it slow and I shouldn’t have pushed--”

“Shawn,” Niall says. Shawn stops talking, frowns, raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Shut up.” Niall surges forward and kisses him, pleased to feel Shawn’s arms wrap around him. It’s not as hurried and feverish as last night, but it is just as needy. Niall feels Shawn’s breath hitch when he moves a hand to Shawn’s hair, threads his fingers in the curls. He smiles into the kiss, pleased at his discovery, until Shawn bites down lightly at Niall’s lip, gives it a tug. Niall pulls away to stave off a whine threatening to escape his throat and Shawn rests his forehead against Niall’s, opening his eyes as he catches his breath.

“There’s two girls over there with their phones up,” he whispers. Niall hates the regretful look in his eyes. “Pretty sure we’re being filmed and this is going to be all over Twitter in less than four minutes.” Niall shakes his head.

“Let them see.”

\---

This time, he doesn’t forget to tell the lads.

He rings Louis up on Skype, repeats, “Patch in Liam,” until Louis finally does, grumbling all the while. 

“Can’t believe I’m not enough for you,” Louis says dramatically as Liam answers. “You’ve _changed_ , Neil. This solo shit has really gone to your ego.”

“Oi, who’s got an ego?” Liam says. Niall blinks at his screen, can see Louis doing the same, surprised into silence. Liam isn’t alone in the little square he makes in the app - Zayn’s there with him.

“Zayn!” Louis exclaims, half a question. “What the hell? Are you in England, mate?”

“Got in an hour ago, like,” Zayn says, grinning. He seems a bit distracted by something off screen. “Was gonna call later, try to, like, meet up.”

“Well, that’s no good,” Louis says. “I’m in LA.”

“Are you?” Niall says. “We should hang out.”

“Uh, _yeah_ , we should, Neil,” Louis says. “I’ve been feeling a bit left out as I seem to be the only one who still hasn’t met your _fake_ boyfriend.”

“Ah,” Niall says.

“Speaking of,” Liam says, “that was a _pretty steamy_ poolside kiss, Nialler.”

“Bit too passionate to be fake,” Zayn says, a cautious smile playing on his lips before diving briefly out of frame.

“Yeah, well, I’m here to eat my words and say Liam was right,” Niall says with a roll of his eyes.

“Ha!” Liam says triumphantly.

“So there _is_ a first for everything, my word,” Louis says.

“Hang on,” Liam says, “can we get Harry on so he can hear that, too? I want there to be as many witnesses as possible.”

“Mmm,” Louis says, making a face. “Haz will hang up if he sees Zayn.” Liam glances at Zayn, who gives a small sigh and a shrug of his shoulders. 

“I’ll put the little animal down for a nap, then,” he says, and this time when he makes a grab for something Niall can’t see, he returns to the screen with Bear in his arms. “Sound good, Grizzly?” Bear babbles, waves his little hand so enthusiastically that Niall and Louis both wave back. Zayn turns to Liam. “Sound good to you, babes?”

“Yeah,” Liam says, biting back a smile when Zayn kisses his forehead. “Or, you can just stand over there if you want, so Harry doesn’t see you but you can hear everything.”

“You can just, like, tell me about it,” Zayn says, blowing a raspberry on Bear’s head, before giving Niall a significant look. “I’m sure I can guess where this is going anyway.” Niall sticks out his tongue. Bear does, too, but disappears from view as Zayn stands up. “Might take my own nap, like, on his floor, to be honest,” Niall hears Zayn say before Zayn’s legs also leave the frame. Liam is still looking up at him.

“Might join you after,” he says. Niall can see Louis’ eyes narrow slightly, the way he does when he’s sniffing out a secret.

“Payno,” Niall says, hoping to head off any of Louis’ potential interrogations, “ring up Harry or he’ll never know what a genius you are.”

Harry is in bed when he answers, blinking bleary-eyed and looking grumpy in his little square on Niall’s screen. Liam whistles annoyingly.

“Somebody had better be pregnant,” Harry mumbles, then goes wide-eyed. “Oh, wait, I shouldn’t say that to you lot. It might actually be true.”

“Hey,” Liam says, drawing it out in a gentle mocking of Harry, who snorts.

“Nobody’s pregnant over here,” Louis says, rolling his eyes. “How ‘bout on your end, Payno?”

“Nope,” Liam says.

“Right. Niall, _please_ tell me you didn’t get a girl pregnant while you’re supposed to be dating Shawn Mendes,” Harry says.

“Yeah, because _I’m_ the one here who ever fucked without a condom,” Niall says.

“Hey!” Louis and Liam say.

“Fair point,” says Harry. “So why the wake up call? Not that I don’t _love_ seeing your faces after getting three hours of sleep.”

“Tell him, Niall,” Liam says.

“Oh, right,” Niall says. “So, yeah, uh, it turns out that--”

“Pay attention, mate,” Liam says.

“--Liam was right--”

“Ha!” Liam says again.

“--and Shawn _was_ in love with me--”

“Liam, you know you weren’t the only one who thought that, right?” Harry asks.

“But I was the first to bring it up!”

“--and I was in love with him, too--”

“Oh!” Liam says, blinking in mild surprise.

“ _I_ knew _that_ ,” Louis declares smugly.

“I thought we all knew that, too,” Harry says. “None of this was secret, right? We placed bets. Am I imagining that?”

“--so it’s real now,” Niall finishes. The other three lads go quiet for a moment, matching expressions of delight dawning on their faces.

“Ni _all_!” Harry exclaims happily. “Good for you!”

“Heyo!” says Louis. “Didn’t know _that_ yet!”

“Congratulations, Nialler!” Liam says. “I was hoping for this! You two seemed very, uh, _for real_ , at the VMAs.”

“I want it on record that I was hoping for this, too,” Louis says.

“We were _all_ always hoping for this,” Harry says. “We took _bets_.”

“But I was the first to say it so it means more from me!” Liam says.

“Ah, I miss you lads,” says Niall.

\---

“I hate this part,” Niall says, shifting in his seat and looking out the window, trying to see how many cars are ahead of theirs in the line. He wishes he could just get out now and walk to the red carpet, cut the anticipation anxiety in half, but he’s tried that before and ended up getting properly scolded by both his manager and his security, so he’s stuck here. Beside him, Shawn hums.

“I bet I could make it less nerve-wracking,” he says thoughtfully. Niall turns his head to see a smirk on Shawn’s face. His cock twitches in interest as he glances at the partition, already in place. He clears his throat.

“Yeah?” he says. Shawn grins and slides to his knees. It’s more cramped than it would be in a real limo, but Niall spreads his legs and Shawn manages to fit himself between them. Niall bites his lip as Shawn pulls his cock out of his pants and licks a wide stripe up the hard length. Shawn grins up at him.

“I feel like Beyonce,” he says. 

“I promise I won’t come on your jacket,” Niall says, hissing when Shawn takes him deep in his mouth for only a few seconds before pulling back and sucking hard at the head. 

“Oh no, you’re gonna come in my mouth,” Shawn says. His lips are already red and puffy. Niall huffs out a laugh, reaches down to tangle his fingers in Shawn’s hair. Shawn’s eyes flutter closed when he tugs.

“Yeah?” Niall says. He pulls Shawn forward by his hair, slips his cock in between Shawn’s lips again. “You gonna walk the red carpet and answer all those questions with the taste of my come on your tongue?” Shawn whimpers at that, and groans as Niall fucks up into his mouth a few times before settling back and letting Shawn work on his own. Still, Niall keeps his hand in his hair, twisting at the curls. He’ll look so disheveled on camera, mouth swollen and hair messy - something both really happening and _real_. Niall sighs, satisfaction at the mere possibility sparking something low in his belly, and smooths his thumb over the determined furrow in Shawn’s brow.


End file.
